


Stronger Together

by joonfired



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The 100 (TV) Fusion, Angst and Feels, Bellarke, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, No Smut, One Shot Collection, One True Pairing, Post-Canon, References to Canon, Slow Burn, Spoilers, The 100 Canonverse, Unity Day (The 100)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-03-12 17:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired
Summary: A collection of Bellarke canonverse one-shots.





	1. Lost & Found

**Author's Note:**

> Taking requests!! Can't promise speed but always open to fresh, canonverse ideas to inspire me.

**post s3e1**

Clarke stumbled along behind the bounty hunter and his companions that had captured her so easily two days ago. Her sides ached, and her hair hung in her face in a sweaty, berry-red mess. The sides of her mouth were raw from the tight gag they’d put on her, and her wrists chafed under the equally tighter strips of rawhide that bound them together.

She’d gotten herself into this mess; ignored her head and let her emotions get the best of her… again.

It was late afternoon when her captors stopped by a stream, and the tall one with crusted black face-paint trailing down his face shoved her to her knees at the bank.

“Wash up,” he ordered.

Clarke glared at him, and he kicked her into the water. As the cold of the stream hit her skin, she gasped and the tall Grounder laughed, splashing in after her.

“No more hiding,” he said, pushing her head under the swiftly flowing water and scrubbing at her hair.

Clarke flailed wildly as her lungs screamed for air. Water crawled up her nose and trickled down her throat. She screamed, helpless.

Just when she thought she was going to drown, up she came. She gasped and blinked, spinning uselessly in the Grounder’s grasp.

He grinned at her and lifted a piece of her wet hair that was now back to its natural blonde color. The berry juice she’d used to disguise her bright, recognizable hair was washed out; only random bits remained a dull maroon color.

Suddenly, the Grounder’s smile disappeared and he leaned in, flicking a knife out of his belt and pressing it against her throat. Clarke stiffened at the touch of the cold metal against her pulse.

“Hello, Wanheda,” he said.

 

****

 

Wanheda, they called her: Commander of Death.

But if Clarke was the leader of death, then Bellamy was her second. Hers wasn’t the only hand to pull the lever that killed Mount Weather.

Bellamy had tried to move on – past the mountain, past Clarke – and had even found a girl, Gena, who had become something to him.

And then he heard about Wanheda, and Clarke came bursting into his life, shattering it apart like she always did, damn her.

Now here he was, in the middle of hostile Grounder territory because Clarke was in danger and he couldn’t rest until he knew she was safe. He didn’t have to think about rescuing her: it had become more than second nature. It was instinctual, something he couldn’t explain, only act upon.

The four of them – Bellamy, Indra, Kane, Monty – had barely escaped one Ice Nation trap three days ago when the Grounders had cut down trees across their vehicle’s path. There had been six against their four, and while Kane had tried the path of negotiation, this Grounder clan didn’t want peace.

They wanted war.

After the brief, frenetic fight, Monty earning the only serious injury with a cut to his shoulder, it took the four of them a day to move the large tree out of their way.

They’d been driving straight ever since.

There weren’t any more traps or ambushes, but Bellamy didn’t drop his guard. If anything, the silence made him extra wary. Grounders were never silent for long.

“We should stop for the night,” Kane said from the back of their vehicle. It was almost evening, that dim, misty time before darkness truly set in. “We won’t be any good against an attack if we can’t keep our eyes open.”

“Then get some sleep,” Bellamy replied tightly. He’d taken over driving several hours back from Monty, who was asleep in the passenger seat, his head resting against the blood-stained bandage on his shoulder. “The Grounders aren’t going to stop until they find Clarke and neither should we if we’re going to find her first.”

 

****

 

It started to rain during the night: harsh, driving rain that soaked Clarke and plastered her hair to her scalp. Lightning sparked overhead, followed by crashing thunder. The only shelter for miles was the tall, narrow-trunked trees of the Ice Nation forest, and so her captors pressed on through the storm.

Clarke kept her head down, chunks of soggy hair falling into her eyes and sticking to her cheeks. Her clothes weighted her down and she could feel more than one blister forming on her feet.

Hours passed.

Wind whipped up and shook the trees, sending a cascade of broken branches and needles and leaves onto their heads. The rain was a torrent now, battering Clarke’s face with sharp, icy fingers.

“We need to stop!” she finally yelled, planting her feet in the soggy ground. Brushing her hair out of her face, she looked up at the tall Grounder as he turned towards her, his two companions instantly flanking her.

“Is Wanheda afraid of a little storm?” the Grounder scoffed.

“Listen to me!” she said, screaming over the sound of the wind. The trees creaked and groaned, large branches now crashing to the ground. “It doesn’t matter what the hell you believe about me right now, okay? I’m just trying to save our lives!”

The leader laughed and turned away…

…right as a tree snapped in the wind and crushed the Grounder on Clarke’s left.

The impact of the tree’s fall sent them all sprawling, and Clarke rolled away from the trunk, blinking frantically against the rain. Lightning flashed again, glinting off a fallen knife a pace from her foot, and she instantly dove for it.

Just as her fingers wrapped around the smooth bone handle, a body tackled her from behind. Clarke squirmed and twisted to the side, kicking at the Grounder. He cursed and elbowed her face before he grabbed for her wrists, but she was too fast.

Her hands came up and his eyes widened as she plunged the knife into his chest, twisting the handle to sink it in. Blood bubbled out as the Grounder gasped, thick and warm, coating Clarke’s hands.

Pushing the dying man away, she sat up and, gripping the knife handle between her feet, cut away the rawhide around her wrists. Freed, Clarke stumbled to her feet, knife at the ready in her right hand.

Lightning illuminated the tall Grounder next to the fallen tree as he struggled to free his left leg from a tangled pile of branches. He looked up and as their eyes met, Clarke saw a flash of fear in his dark eyes.

For one moment she looked the part of the Wanheda: bloody knife in hand, blood trickling from her split lip and spilling down her chin.

And then she turned and ran into the storm.

 

Clarke ran until she couldn’t, and still she struggled on into the hurricane. Lightning lit her way in intermittent glimpses of the forest around her as she ran through bushes that tore at her clothes and slogged through storm-swollen creeks.

She slipped so many times she lost count, and soon she was covered in thick mud. But each time she fell, she pushed herself to her feet and kept going into the raging deluge. This storm was her chance at freedom and she wasn’t going to waste it.

Suddenly, Clarke tripped and fell into the dark. She tumbled head over heels, her limbs encountering various mystery obstacles until she crashed to a stop.

She gasped for air, but there was none in her lungs. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, throbbing through her aching body. Her eyes stung with heat as tears slipped down her cheeks to mingle with the rain.

She felt like screaming.

But all Clarke did was close her eyes.

 

****

 

Bellamy stared at their vehicle, arms crossed. His jacket was damp and clung uncomfortably to his skin, but that was the least of his worries right now. Their vehicle’s solar powered battery had died in the storm last night, leaving them stranded on foot deep in hostile territory.

“I would radio Arkadia,” Monty was saying, “but seeing as we’re out of range, that’s not going to do anything.”

“We should turn back,” Indra said to Bellamy. “Wanheda has escaped the bounty on her head for three months–”

“ _Clarke_ ,” Bellamy interrupted, and Indra stared daggers at him. “Her name is Clarke. Your people may call her something else, but that’s not who she is. Not to us.”

_Not to me._

“Indra’s right,” Kane spoke up, placing a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder. “We’re stuck in the middle of the territory of a clan who wouldn’t think twice about killing us. If we want to help Clarke, we need to retreat and come back with reinforcements.”

“Yeah, but is that what she’d do?” Monty said, all eyes suddenly focusing on him. He shrugged and then winced when the movement aggravated his wound. “Clarke never gave up on us, no matter what. The whole reason she’s this Wanheda person is because she didn’t give up, she did whatever it took to make sure we were safe.”

Indra looked away, clenching her jaw. Kane looked at the ground, scratching the back of his head. Bellamy straightened and glanced at the soggy forest around them.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that Clarke was in more danger than everyone thought or said she was, felt it deep in his gut. And how could he turn his back on her after everything she’d done for him, including saving his life more than once?

“Monty’s right,” he said, shouldering the strap of his gun and grabbing a survival pack from the back of the vehicle.

“Bellamy–” Kane started.

“I’m not going back,” he said, buckling the straps of the pack over his shoulders, “but you should. Monty’s shoulder needs Abby’s attention, and you’re the best chance at peace we’ve got without Clarke. We’ve got a better chance of our search for her staying silent if it’s just one of us on foot.”

“But how will you explain this?” Indra pointed at their dead vehicle. “This is Skykru."

“That was one hell of a storm last night,” Bellamy said with a shrug. “You got lost, the magic that makes it run escaped… make something up.”

He felt Kane’s eyes on him, judging and analyzing his decisions, but Bellamy didn’t give a damn about what the Chancellor’s second-in-command thought right now. He’d made his choice.

And of all of them except Indra, who didn’t give a damn about Clarke, Bellamy had the best chance of navigating Grounder territory on his own. Thanks to Octavia and Lincoln, he had a pretty good grasp of the Trikru language.

“Wait,” Kane said.

Bellamy glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Just…” Kane paused, obviously searching for the right words. “Be careful. The truce is fragile enough without this whole Wanheda business.” He grinned wryly. “So try not to start a war.”

“You too,” Bellamy said, and then plunged into the woods.

 

****

 

Clarke dreamed of her cell on the Ark, but instead of trees and skies and stars, she drew the faces of the children in Mount Weather. She drew them as she had known them: blistered and silent.

She kept drawing even as her fingers dripped blood and showed bone.

She kept drawing as she sobbed and begged to stop, to make the pain leave.

She kept drawing even when her hands were gone and all that were left were bloody stumps that smeared the red of her shame across the Ark walls.

Clarke woke up with a strangled scream that never made it out of her throat. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air, blinking against the sudden brightness of the sun overhead.

She rolled onto her side and inspected her surroundings: green ferns, moss-draped stones, general debris blown down by the storm.

She’d slept through the storm.

Clarke sat up… and then realized she just couldn’t. She was too weak. Her muscles tightened and tried, but there wasn’t enough energy in her body.

She’d escaped only to end up at the bottom of a ditch, feverish and weak.

 

****

 

He found the two dead Grounders an hour or so later, one of them crushed under a fallen tree, the other stabbed in the chest. The rain had washed any leading signs away, but Bellamy suspected Clarke had had a hand in this… unless the Ice Nation was squabbling amongst themselves.

But Bellamy had never been one for wishful thinking.

 

****

 

The day dragged on, each minute like an hour to Clarke. She was burning now, every synapse in her brain on fire. She craved water, her mouth parched dry.

Night fell, cold and windy.

Clarke curled in on herself, clutching her ripped and damp clothing about herself in a feeble attempt to try and stay warm.

And as the walls around her emotions crumbled and fell, as her mind wandered, she found herself thinking about Bellamy. His was the last face from the Ark that she had seen, the person she had only realized then that was the hardest to leave behind.

Her confusion and guilt were still at war, still keeping her from the people she had become the Grounder’s Wanheda to save. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she?

But the one thing Clarke knew that true on the ground, was that the lines between right and wrong were impossible to draw.

 

****

 

Bellamy stopped at the edge of a steep ditch. He’d barely escaped falling into it in the dark, and he took the pause it had given him in his search to catch his breath. He was tired, but he was driven. He couldn’t truly rest or relax until he knew Clarke was safe.

Holding onto the trunk of a tree, he leaned over the edge of the ditch and looked down, trying to see how deep it was. And that’s when he saw the body sprawled at least thirty feet down, with a halo of blonde hair.

Clarke.

“No,” Bellamy murmured, the world narrowing to only the sight of Clarke’s silent form. “Oh God, _no!_ ”

He started down into the ditch, grasping for balance and support at the flimsy bushes and fallen branches as he half-stumbled, half-ran towards the girl who meant as much to him as his sister Octavia. The only other person who could see past and break down his walls so, so easily… something no girl, not even Gena, was able to do to him.

When he reached Clarke and brushed the hair aside from her face, she stirred weakly, a soft whimper slipping past her chapped lips.

Bellamy let out an explosive breath of relief.

“You sure gave me a scare there, princess,” he muttered, looking around. There was no way he was going to get her out of here on his own, not unless help came or she was able to walk, which guessing on the fact that she was still in this ditch, he knew she wasn’t in the condition.

“Bellamy?” Clarke’s voice was soft, too soft.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, focusing on her once more.

She laughed, but it came out as a raspy cough. She tried to say something, but it was too faint for him to catch. And when he touched her head again, he felt the abnormal heat of her skin.

“Shit,” he growled, shedding his pack and gun as he looked around for a suitable spot the two of them could shelter from the steadily dropping temperatures that, until now, hadn’t mattered that much to him.

Scooping Clarke’s limp, feverish form into his arms, Bellamy headed towards a thick patch of bushes, almost thick enough to be called trees.

 

****

 

Clarke knew she was dreaming. Where else would Bellamy be?

But as her fever burned and what was impossible mixed with her reality, scattering her thoughts, he didn’t leave. He stayed with her, wrapping his jacket around her and holding her against his warm arms, his heartbeat drumming in her ears.

And when light began to filter down from the sky, as Clarke’s mind and fever began to clear, she realized it wasn’t a dream. It was oh-so-real. Bellamy was there and her head was tucked under his chin and against his chest, and his Guard jacket wrapped snugly around her. When she stirred, he shifted to hold her closer against him with a sigh.

Clarke closed her eyes, basking in the presence of someone she absolutely trusted, no matter what other tangled emotions he brought into being inside her battered heart.


	2. A Common Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post s3e2

Bellamy limped beside Monty, teeth gritted against both the pain from the wound in his leg and the ache of frustration that sat as hard lump in his chest. He’d been so close to Clarke just to fail her in the end.

He hadn’t been able to save her.

No matter what, things always narrowed down to something he did; a mistake that haunted him, lurking around every corner of his thoughts.

“Hey. Stop beating yourself up,” Monty hissed, yanking Bellamy out of his depressed and admittedly self-blame. “If the Grounder wanted to kill her he would have by now.”

“I know,” Bellamy muttered, not meeting Monty’s concerned face. He’d let his worry blind him, he’d given up their element of surprise. “I still screwed up, was too damn impatient.”

And now the Grounder knew the weakness that Bellamy and Clarke shared: they’d do anything to keep the other alive.

 

****

 

Clarke raged the entire way from Lexa’s throne room to the room the two Grounder guards took her to, another prison. Alternating between angry shouts and threats at Lexa, Clarke spun away from the guards when they released her and bared her teeth.

“Tell your _commander_ she’s going to have to watch me every moment if she wants me to stay here,” she snarled.

The guards didn’t reply, didn’t even twitch a facial muscle. But Clarke saw in their eyes that she scared them. Good.

When the door was shut and locked behind her, she walked over to the high, narrow sort of window and stretched up on her toes to peer out.

Her breath rushed out in a surprised gasp; she knew the bounty hunter Roan had brought her somewhere high, but she’d never imagined just how high this building was. It was a relic of Earth’s glorious past, one of the few remaining skyscrapers.

And Clarke was at the top.

 

****

 

Kane brought their group to a stop an hour later in a cluster of trees. Pike stood nearby, his dark face stony. He and Kane had been arguing about how to handle the Ice Nation threat, and while Kane was going to keep the treaty as best he could, Pike saw all Grounders as threats. Bellamy wasn’t thinking about the treaty much, but he knew that if Pike kept his current mindset, the Ice Nation soon wouldn’t be the only threat to the peace treaty.

“Why are we stopping?” he asked, switching from leaning on Monty to a tree. Pain rolled up and down his leg in sharp waves, but Bellamy didn’t care. It wasn’t an extremely threatening wound, and all that mattered was getting Clarke and making sure she was safe.

“Because you can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Kane said, shouldering his gun and walking towards him. “You’re losing blood, Bellamy. You won’t be any good to Clarke if you’re dead.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Bellamy shot back tersely, but it was through gritted teeth. He closed his eyes momentarily and then straightened, clenching his jaw against the pain. “They can’t be that far; I wasn’t knocked out very long, and they have to avoid the Ice Nation army too.”

“Whatever,” Monty said, shrugging his pack off his shoulders. He looked up at Bellamy through his bangs, his features serious. “Kane’s right, okay? Just… at least let me take a better look at that wound.”

“You got this?” Monty’s mom asked, confused. Bellamy knew what was going on her mind: last she knew her son was a fun-loving boy who got busted for sneaking drug plants out of the greenhouse.

That was almost a year ago. The ground had changed all of them into people they never dreamed they could be.

“Yeah,” Monty replied, pulling fresh bandages out of his pack. “Jasper hasn’t been doing too well last few months so I’ve ended up hanging around Abby a bit and I picked up some useful skills. I think.”

“It doesn’t have to look pretty,” Bellamy reassured him as he settled into a seated position on the ground and stretched his wounded leg out. He growled as the movement pulled a different set of muscles and he felt blood trickle down his leg. “I’m not picky.”

~

Half an hour later, Bellamy was able to walk on his own, even if he was slower than he’d like to be, and they set out again. In the woods around them they could hear the echoing rhythm of Ice Nation drums, a constant reminder of the trouble they all faced.

Bellamy wondered where Clarke was, if that bounty hunter trusted her to keep her word and at least removed that gag from her mouth. He remembered the way she’d looked at him when he’d been in front of her, the way her skin felt under his fingertips when he brushed her tangled hair away from her.

In that moment, despite the threat of Ice Nation and the fact that Clarke was still tied to a cement support, Bellamy had let his guard drop because she was there. All that had mattered was Clarke.

Of course, his intense focus on her had blinded him to the presence of the bounty hunter, enabling the Grounder to wound him. If Bellamy had just waited one more hour, if he’d cut Clarke loose and ran…

_I’m not making the same mistake again._

 

****

 

Clarke paced the room. This was after she’d thoroughly searched it, but fur bedding and floor dust wasn’t going to help her escape. If the building wasn’t so impossibly tall she could have squeezed out the window, but she wasn’t suicidal.

And now Bellamy was out there. Wounded, yes, but Clarke knew him and that he wouldn’t give up. She’d never been so relieved to see someone when he appeared in front of her, knowing that he was real and not just in her dreams.

She should have warned him about Roan earlier, and her one moment of weakness had cost him. From the angle of the knife she knew that he would survive, but it wasn’t an easy wound to recover from.

Footsteps by her door caused her to stop pacing, and a moment later Indra walked in alone.

The Trikru leader held up a hand to stop Clarke’s prepared rant.

“I know you have reason to hate Lexa,” she said, “but she saved your life. You would be dead if Roan brought you straight to his mother.”

“I know,” Clarke snapped. “But Indra, please. Bellamy–”

“Is looking for you, yes,” Indra replied. She glanced at the closed door, and then said quietly, “I have already sent a runner to bring them here.”

 

****

A Grounder walked towards them in the evening, hands held carefully away from his weapons. He was young, about Bellamy’s age, with a shaved head and dark tattoos swirling across his eyes like war-paint.

“Indra sent me,” he said as soon as he was within earshot. “She told me to bring you to Polis.”

“To Lexa?” Bellamy snarled. “No way, that bitc–”

“Bellamy!” Kane said tersely, and then he turned to the runner. “How far?”

“Half a day,” the Grounder replied, and then looked straight at Bellamy. A mocking smile curved at the corners of his mouth. “Your Wanheda is waiting.”

 

****

 

Clarke jumped to her feet every time someone passed by her room. She’d asked to be let out, even stooping to the level of yelling for Lexa to face her, but her shouts were ignored.

The day ended and the night slipped by just as slowly. Clarke sat across from the door and dozed fitfully, her dreams a scattered chaotic mess of past events tangled with the hazy fictional things that lurked in the dark corners of her mind.

And then…

“Damn my leg!” Bellamy’s frustrated voice, the one that once infuriated Clarke beyond words, was now the absolute best thing to hear. “Where is she?”

“Bellamy!” Clarke shouted, jumping to her feet and running to the door.

“Found her,” she heard Kane say, followed by Monty’s, “Clarke!”

“I’m over here!” she shouted, shaking the door, listening to the sound of their feet drawing closer.

And then the door swung open and Clarke stepped back, only to be enveloped by Bellamy’s arms. She sagged against him with a soft sound of relief, tucking her head against his shoulder as she hugged him back just as fiercely.

Monty stood nearby, followed by Kane and oddly enough Officer Pike, her old survival skill trainer from the Ark. But all that mattered was Bellamy, that he was here and going nowhere soon.

He had become her greatest weakness, but he was also the one person who made her the strongest.


	3. A Moment To Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post s4e1

It was raining, a thin drizzle that dripped from the tree branches and down the collar of Bellamy's jacket. He sniffed in mild annoyance as their little band continued through the forest that lay between them and Arkadia. At least he was still alive to feel the rain. And he was  _on earth_  where rain fell, not trapped in a metal box.

Clarke strode ahead of him, her blonde hair lank and damp against her shoulders. She moved like a hurricane, this girl, barely stopping for food and rest. Bellamy knew why she was so focused, but Clarke had not been given any breaks in a long, long time. None of them had.

It wasn't too much to ask of the universe to give them at least one day of rest before the next big crisis, was it?

****

Clarke was miles past weariness. She was exhausted in so many different ways: physically, mentally . . . emotionally. Her fingers kept drifting to the pocket of her jacket where the Flame had been as a pitiful reminder of what she had lost. But it was gone now, gifted to King Roan as a peace offering and bargaining chip with the temperamental Azgeda.

Why couldn't those fools see all that she had done to help them, to help  _all_  of them? If Clarke was another kind of person, she would have given up by now. She had gone through  _so much_  and it weighed on her with an unforgettable, eternal burden. Yes, the past was the past and it could not hold her . . . but that did not erase its existence nor the problems that it brought for the future.

The future: once again a dark, terrible thing that she had to figure out some impossible way to conquer and survive.

Bellamy came from behind and fell in stride with her, his presence both a comfort and a reminder of all the debts she owed him. Despite their many, many mistakes and flaws, he had always been there for her. Always.

"We'll have to stop for the night," he said quietly. "Would Niylah take us in again?"

Clarke sighed, her step faltering for one almost imperceptible moment. There were so many details to think about all the time. Sometimes in moments like this, when her exhaustion was a physical ache deep inside her bones, she wished the crown of leadership was not hers to wear. That escape was as easy as closing her eyes . . .  _NO_. That kind of thinking had been what gave Alie and her City of Light such appeal, because it was such a powerful temptation.

"We'd be as safe with her as we would be on our own," she finally replied, glancing at Bellamy's familiar and reassuring features. "Honestly, I really don't want to deal with any Grounders right now. Um" - she grimaced slightly, shaking her head - "no, I didn't really mean it like that. I just . . . I need some space."

"Understood," he said, his tone empathetic. He nodded firmly, a soldier's action.

Bellamy started to move forward.

"Wait," Clarke said without thinking, throwing a hand out to catch the sleeve of his Guard jacket. Her fingers dug into the damp material with an instinctive desperation that surprised her. "Stay. Please?"

Bellamy did not hesitate before he nodded, falling back in step with Clarke as they continued through the forest.

Even if nothing but silence lay between them, she needed Bellamy. She always had. And while the memory of Lexa was still a recent and bitter memory that she could not swallow, Bellamy had existed long before the Grounder Heda had for Clarke. She trusted him - implicitly.

****

They set up a skeleton camp a little past the halfway mark to Arkadia. They were close to the labyrinth of caves that Bellamy had sheltered in from the acid storms those first few days on the ground, just inside the edge of Skaikru's first-claimed territory.

The days of juvenile delinquents against the world seemed so long ago.

While the others gathered around their small fire, heating or eating whatever rations they'd brought or scavenged, he went over to Clarke. She was sitting a few feet outside the orange glow of firelight, her back to the rest of them as she looked out into the dark forest. The rain had finally stopped, but the scent of it hung heavy in the air and Bellamy's hair still clung damp and stringy against the back of his neck.

"Hey there," he said softly, crouching by Clarke. He'd kept an eye on her while he did his part of the camp setup and laid out the watch schedule, noting that she had slowly folded in on herself. She hadn't eaten yet, and so he held out the few strips of jerky he'd taken for her from his pack. "You're no good to anyone if you're half-dead from starvation."

She seemed to mentally shake herself out of whatever she'd been dwelling on and pushed away the strands of hair that had fallen into her face as she turned to him. The smile on her face was shallow and didn't touch her eyes, but he would take it.

"Thanks," she murmured, taking the jerky and biting off a healthy amount without a moment of hesitation.

Bellamy moved to sit next to her on the half-buried log. They ate together, passing his canteen between them to wash down the jerky. The inaudible conversation of the rest of their group was a distant murmur behind them; the nighttime sounds of the forest were a wild concert in front of them.

"We're not far from the car," Clarke finally said. "It was where Wells, Finn, and I sheltered from that first bad acid storm, the one we found Adam after. I think . . . " - she huffed a humorless laugh - "I think we left that old bottle of whiskey in there, still unfinished."

"Are you asking me out for a drink, princess?" Bellamy drawled, unable to resist the opportunity.

Clarke looked over at his teasing response, her smile now glinting in her eyes.

"I guess so." She got to her feet and jerked her chin in the direction of the forest. "C'mon."

"One sec," he muttered, walking back to the fire.

He really didn't  _want_  to broadcast the fact that he and Clarke were going off into the woods, but he wasn't stupid. They couldn't just disappear on their people. Too many things could happen to be that careless.

"Clarke and I are checking something out," he told Jaha, who sat calmly by himself, staring pensively into the dancing flames of the fire. "We should be back in couple hours at the most. If you need anything" - he tapped the walkie-talkie on his belt - "you can radio me. Got it?"

Jaha looked up at him, his dark brown eyes eerily clear and seemingly untainted by all the horrors he'd brought about as the prophet of Alie. It was as if the man was not truly haunted by anything, not anymore. At least not like the rest of them. Bellamy didn't really hate the once-Chancellor, but he held him no loyalty either.

"I understand, Mister Blake," Jaha said pleasantly, almost tonelessly. Or so Bellamy imagined. "Thank you for the notification."

Bellamy nodded curtly, and then turned on his heel and strode back to Clarke, who was standing with a strange little smile on her face as she looked back at Jaha. It mirrored Bellamy's thoughts, on how no matter what Jaha did or who he was, he still carried the demeanor of a Chancellor with him. Even the way he had thanked Bellamy just then echoed of power and control, although quite probably without meaning to. It still felt off, though, bringing back memories of the days on the Ark when Jaha's word was law.

"All right, lead the way," Bellamy said, adjusting the strap of his rifle slung over his shoulder. Guns were still the powerful advantage Skaikru had against the Grounders and Bellamy would be damned before he went out without his weapons, peace treaty or not.

****

It took some wandering about before Clarke's boots thumped hollowly on the metal side of the buried vehicle, springy green moss clinging to the rusting frame. She opened the door to the cramped space with a cringingly loud screech of metal on metal, and then peered into the dark interior. She was long past squeamishness of any sort, but the sudden thought of spider-infested skeletons crossed her mind. Like she would somehow   
skip back into an alternate past where she, Finn, and Wells had perished here and she was a ghost revisiting the site of her death.

As if sensing her momentary fears, Bellamy unhooked a flashlight from his belt and crouched next to her, shining the white beam into the vehicle. Nothing but peeling seats, dirt, and cobwebs met their searching gazes . . . as well as the discarded bottle of whiskey with an inch or so of amber liquor remaining.

"Booze in an abandoned car," Bellamy muttered, dark amusement in his voice. "You sure know how to party."

"Oh, shut up," Clarke shot back lightly, glad for the distraction of light-hearted banter.

Wasn't this what she wanted? A time to just forget, even if only for an hour? Why did it still feel so . . . so fake?

The whiskey would help.

She jumped down into the small space, shuffling over to make room for Bellamy as he followed after her. He closed the door instinctively, acting on the survival habits of security. The glow of the flashlight illuminated the inside of the vehicle in stark shades of black and white where he set it down next to him, the edges of the seats and the delicate lines of the cobwebs outlined sharply.

Clarke picked up the dusty bottle and stared at the contents, swirling them gently and watching the light glint through the hazy glass. Sitting here was almost like traveling back in time, and she half-expected to hear the deadly whisper of acid overhead or smell its acrid scent. She glanced to her left where she'd been last time, full of bitter anger and struggling with the new burden of leadership.

And then, suddenly, she started laughing. It was uncontrollable, painful gasps that yanked themselves up from her stomach and out her mouth in short, barking sounds. She heard herself echoed back from the walls, ringing in her ears and her head.

She sounded crazy.

Still laughing, though now it felt more like sobs and tears hovered in stinging blurs at the corners of her eyes, Clarke opened the bottle. She took a long, deep swig of the thin, burning alcohol and swallowed hard, feeling the heat of it pour down her throat and into her stomach. It was a good sensation, promising escape

"I really want to get drunk right now," she told Bellamy, following this half-giggled statement with another gulp from the bottle. She found his eyes, warm and real and  _there_ , and smiled bitterly. "But I also hate myself for wanting that."

Another gulp - the bottle was almost empty now. God, had she almost drank the whole thing? What great self-control she had.

"Okay," Bellamy said, unslinging his rifle. He shifted into a seated position, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He pulled the bottle from her limp fingers and lifted to his mouth, wincing slightly as he swallowed. "Wow, this is some strong stuff."

"It should be," Clarke said, shifting into a more comfortable position against the rotting seat behind her. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, warmth thrumming through her veins. "It's been aging for a hundred years."

Bellamy snorted, and she heard the slosh of liquid in the bottle as he took another drink. Clarke cracked her eyes open, their gazes meeting. It was an easy, familiar thing to look at Bellamy. She felt so sure and strong whenever he would meet her glances or she would find him looking at her.

"Are you doing okay?" Bellamy said, breaking the thick silence between them. He passed the bottle back to her, and she took a shallow sip from it as she mulled over her reply, though Clarke didn't think that she really needed to speak for him to understand.

"I'm tired," she finally admitted, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. She rolled the cool, gritty glass of the bottle between her palms, watching the remaining liquid tumble and splash about. "I want to be selfish, but I can't . . . which is a good thing. I . . . " - she gulped back tears, her voice breaking momentarily - "I keep losing the ones I love. I miss them. I miss . . . oh,  _God_ , I miss feeling happy." She looked at Bellamy, his features blurring under a sudden sheen of hot tears. "Do you remember the last time you were really, truly happy?"

"It was a long time ago," he said.

"Were you ever happy here on the ground?"

He frowned, scratching a hand through his lovely mess of hair. Clarke had wanted to run her fingers through those thick curls for a long time, now - ever since that night she'd crawled out of the bunker they'd gotten their first guns from and found him muddied and broken, like a lost boy instead of the fearless rebel. She still wasn't sure what to label her feelings for Bellamy as. All she knew was that his death would be the one loss to break her.

****

Real happiness was a foreign emotion to Bellamy. There were times that he'd been happy, yes, but never completely at ease or joyful. There was always  _something_  on his mind, a shadow to mar the would-be sunlight. And Clarke's question of if he'd ever been happy on the ground was a tough one to answer.

He'd been happy the day he'd recieved his pardon from Jaha when he was the Chancellor, but that was overshadowed by the looming danger of the Grounders. He'd been happy when they'd rescued their people from Mount Weather, but that was overshadowed by what they'd had to do to bring that about . . . and then by Clarke's sudden departure. He'd been happy with Gina, but not knowing if Clarke was safe or not overshadowed and blocked any chance of truly loving her; but if Bellamy was honest with himself, Gina was an unconcious replacement for the girl he really wanted. He'd been happy when they defeated Alie, but that was quickly overshadowed by the countdown to worldwide death.

The question he now found himself faced with instead was just as hard to answer: would he ever be truly happy?

"I really don't remember," he finally admitted, looking away and picking at a loose scrap of rotting fabric on the seat in front of him.

"Yeah," Clarke murmured.

A few moments later, Bellamy shook himself and stretched as best he could in the cramped space. How three people had fit in here and stayed overnight must have been hell, though he assumed the whiskey had helped.

"No, I don't want to go," Clarke protested with a slightly slurred voice, reaching out and touching his shoulder. "Not yet. I . . . It's horrible, but I can pretend everything is okay right now and I don't want to leave that. Not yet."

He couldn't say no.

So they stayed, the air growing hot and musty with each passing minute. Bellamy turned the flashlight off to conserve the battery, and then emptied the bottle of whiskey sometime after that. His veins were warm and buzzing with the alcohol, his thoughts blurry enough to push away the sharper edges of his worries for just a moment. It was easy to understand why Clarke didn't want to leave. Right now, in the dark of this piece of history, they could shrug away their burdens and just be.

They deserved a moment to breathe.

"Maybe we'll find a big hidden rocket or something," he finally said, his mind inevitably drifting to the future they were hoping so desperately to find some way to escape. "Go back up into space and build a new Ark, wait the new apocalypse out like we did last time."

Clarke made an unintelligible sound in response, followed by the sound of her shifting her position again. Bellamy closed his eyes and told himself he'd take just five minutes . . .

****

Clarke woke up with her head pillowed on Bellamy's leg. Her mouth tasted like sand and her eyes were heavy as she struggled to lift them. The inside of the car was lit faintly by the graying light of predawn, the edges of everything softened in the dim.

When she lifted her head, Bellamy shifted and muttered something under his breath.

"Wha-" he groaned, cracking his eyes at her. Confusion played in varying degress across his features for a brief moment before he realized what had happened. "I guess Jaha didn't think to radio us back."

Clarke shifted into a sitting position, her muscles protesting against the odd position she'd slept in. She yawned and scrubbed a hand through her hair, feeling silly . . . but also the most rested since her nights in Polis. It was a strange feeling, like a half-forgotten memory.

"We're going to have some explaining to do," she started, thinking that there were very few reasons that people would think why she and Bellamy would have left camp without much explanation. That, or the camp had been attacked, which would explain the lack of communication from Jaha after the few hours they'd said they'd be back by had long passed . . .

Bellamy cut her off with a simple touch. He reached over and pulled her gently to him so that she was settled against him, her head resting in the space between his shoulder and his neck. His heartbeat thudded steady in her ear, and he held her loosely with a quiet affection that echoed in her bones, unspoken yet powerful in its silence.

"I don't want to go," he said, his voice rough with sleep. "Not yet."

She couldn't say no.


	4. Magnetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Praimfaya aka the moment hiatus hit me in the feels and I turned to writing to keep my sanity until s5

Clarke survived, but she was alone: her friends hopefully alive in the remainder of the Ark; her mother and people hopefully alive underground. With Praimfaya came the destruction of everything Clarke had come to know about the world.

And so she had to learn to live.

With the unique strength of her Nightblood against the radiated world, she explored the ruins of the island. She scavenged for food and technology alike, finding little of either.

Another year passed, slow and fast at the same time. Each day seemed both alike and different, her words spoken aloud to herself the only voice she knew beyond the temperamental weather and the odd creature who, like her, had somehow managed to survive.

After fifteen months of failure, Clarke finally pieced together a working radio made of a conglomeration of scavenged parts, luck, and persistence. She radioed the common frequency for the Polis bunker and got nothing. She radioed the Ark and got nothing.

Maybe she truly was alone. Maybe her friends and family and people were gone, killed in Praimfaya after everything they had done to survive it.

No. Clarke refused to fall prey to those doubts. Her people _were_ alive. Her mother _was_ alive. Her friends _were_ alive.

Bellamy was alive.

Through everything – Praimfaya, her sickness as her body’s cells mutated to survive, her loneliness, frustration, despair, hope, successes and failures – she had kept Bellamy tucked safely in her heart, replying little moments she didn’t think she had remembered until she had nothing left _but_ those moments. And it was then, when she had perhaps lost him forever, that Clarke knew and admitted to herself that she loved him.

And she missed him – oh! How she missed him.

She missed Bellamy’s rare, wide smile that held only the brightest and warmest of joys. She missed trying to count the freckles on his features as she tried especially _not_ to count them. She missed his voice, deep and comforting even in their darkest moments. She even missed their fights from those early days, seemingly so small in the light of all they had faced.

She missed her mother and friends, too, but it wasn’t their faces that she saw the most or dreamed about. She wanted to see them again, too, but they weren’t the ones she found herself wishing to see first.

No.

Clarke missed everything about Bellamy with everything that she was.

 

~

 

Bellamy had forgotten how quiet it was in space.

Oh, there was the hiss of the air circulating in the vents and the muted pulse of electricity humming in the walls. But compared the vibrancy of Earth, going back to space made life gray and dull.

Maybe that was because Clarke wasn’t there, wasn’t _anywhere_ except maybe miniscule specks of dust from what had been left of the world after Praimfaya.

Bellamy tried not to think about her very much. And for the first fourteen months after they – he, Raven, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, and Echo – arrived in the discarded remains of the Ark, he almost succeeded. The fact that they had to constantly work to stay alive, to keep the Ring running, helped quite a bit.

But he really didn’t know how to be lonely, not with the knowledge that Clarke was gone. Some nights Echo helped stave off the emptiness and, one time, Raven had, too. But those were nothing but moments when the loneliness was so much for them that drowning it in mindless pleasure was all they had left. Even with Monty’s expertise and imagination, there wasn’t much beyond the necessary amounts for survival to consume on the Ark.

They’d shared the bottle of Baton that Bellamy had found on that first night, both a celebratory and mournful time.

And then they’d gotten to work on surviving, and there wasn’t much time for anything. Bellamy even dreamed about running the water filtration pumps, checking for unstable sections, or fixing the newest power emergency . . . when he wasn’t dreaming about Clarke.

He had loved her, he knew that.

It was something he had realized and admitted a long time ago, but now it seemed that he hadn’t realized it soon enough. If he had the chance to see Clarke one more time, he would tell her. He almost had in those final hours on Earth, and all he had now was the thought that somehow she had known what he wanted to say without needing to say it.

The old prison block was part of the Ark, and in there Bellamy discovered Clarke’s old cell. He knew it was hers the instant he opened the door and saw the art, pictures of Earth before she had even stepped onto the planet. And even though he knew this had been a place of fear and confusion for her, it was the hope that shone through in her artwork that made him pick the cell as his sleeping quarters.

For even with Clarke gone, he had a part of her right here.

But that was before they received the garbled, static-heavy message.

 

_Ark. Sta. Cla. R. Ive._

_Ark Station. It’s Clarke. I’m alive._

 

Thus ensued a frantic scramble to, once again, piece together a transmitting radio that, once again, was hopeless. For even with Raven and Monty’s skills, there just wasn’t enough parts left in the Ring to send out messages. They could receive and record, but nothing more. Even the rocket’s radio had been fried in the escape to space, burnt by the blistering radiation of Praimfaya.

Several days later, there was another transmission, this time clearer than the first. And another. Soon, they could clearly receive Clarke’s messages when she sent them, which was daily. Without fail.

 

_Maybe I’m just talking to nothing, but if anyone can hear me, I’m alive. I made it. I’m different, but I survived._

_The Nightblood worked. It does work, because I can be outside with no side effects at all. The only thing that seems to have changed are my eyes – they’re turning gray, like silver. My mom or Raven could probably figure out a reason in a few seconds, I know._

_I found a girl today, in one of the ruined villages. She’s a Nightblood, like me. Her eyes are silver, too. Her name’s Madi._

_No hope for the extinction of mosquitoes. The birds are back, too._

_One of the rovers from Arkadia still works. There isn’t much left of the Ark down here, but the garage and a few rooms made it. The dropship is still one piece, too. Madi and I are living there now. There’s a lot of memories in that thing, isn’t there? How things have changed._

And on it went. Once she had realized that there was going to be no reply anytime soon, Clarke used the radio as a sort of diary, repeating over and over that even with the silence, she still had hope that they were alive and listening. Of course, they all were. After their third year in space, Raven gave up trying to contact Clarke back.

But Bellamy continued to count down the days until they could return to Earth and he could see Clarke.

~

 

Despite the radio silence, Clarke continued to count down the days until the others could return. She was more hopeful of those in space than those underground; the tower of Polis had collapsed onto the bunker entrance, sealing everyone better than any door ever could.

It would take months to dig them out, and that was if she had a hundred people at her beck and call. All she had was Madi and herself. And Bellamy, who was a year late.

After radioing the Ark in the morning with the usual silent response, Clarke woke Madi who was sleeping in the back of their rover. They were on a week-long hunting trip, since what surviving animals there were had learned better than to roam near the old dropship where Clarke and the young Nightblood made their home.

“Wake up, my little Nightblood,” Clarke said quietly, rousing the sleeping girl with a gentle shake.

“Are we home yet?” the girl replied sleepily, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes.

“Not yet,” she said, closing the rover doors after Madi sprang out, blinking at the morning sun. “But we’re close. See? You know these trees.”

Madi didn’t reply, but she nodded as she looked around. After Praimfaya, the world had been nothing but ash, the dust of what had been. But then, like magic, bits of green appeared here and there. Birds fluttered and chirped in the air, the water cleared and dark fish rolled in the murky depths, and even the mosquitoes had made a comeback.

It was amazing how nature had survived, though the circle of life only stretched so far as a hundred-mile radius, slowly tapering off into the parts of the world that were taking longer to heal from Praimfaya.

“Come on, Madi,” Clarke called, glancing over her shoulder when she noticed that the girl hadn’t followed her to the front of the rover.

“What’s that?” Madi said, pointing up at the sky.

Clarke’s heart seemed to both skip and stop at the same time when she saw the burning object falling from the blue sky.

“It’s them,” she breathed, scrambling from the rover and dashing to the cliff where she had radioed just a few minutes ago.

The dropship arced towards the ground wreathed in flame. Clarke unslung the rifle from her back, the one she carried everywhere and had carved the names of those she had lost into the wooden stock, and looked at the nearing ship through the scope.

It _was_ them, an almost-replica of the dropship she and Madi called home.

Clarke slung the rifle back over her shoulder, half-hearing Madi’s questions as she realized that, in a little while, she’d see her friends again. She would be able to introduce the people to Madi who the girl had until now only known as stories. She could talk to them and receive answers this time.

She would see Bellamy again.

The ship landed a way off, about twenty miles, the crash and boom echoing to where Clarke stood. It echoed the sound of her heart, each beat pulsing loud and excited her in ears.

“Are we going to them?” Madi asked, her gray eyes both excited and cautious.

Clarke nodded, not sure if she could trust herself to speak right then. She felt like crying, like screaming with joy.

She had hoped that they were alive, but now she was sure.

 

~

 

They were late.

A year had passed since the original return date, and each day they weren’t able to leave the Ark – first it was a broken dropship, next a lack of fuel, and finally the time it took to make new fuel and adapt the engines from hydrazine to the chemical compound that Raven and Monty had concocted – seemed longer and longer.

But finally, _finally_ , the day of departure came. And it felt oddly surreal to Bellamy for them to load up and strap into the dropship, like that moment eight odd years ago when he had made his way onto the first ship to Earth in one hundred years so his sister wouldn’t be alone.

He was confident that Octavia was alive since Clarke had been able to make some form of contact with the Second Dawn bunker once or twice before losing that contact. He knew that Polis had buried the bunker and that a year had passed on their return date, too, but he also knew his sister. She would have changed in their time apart, but Bellamy seriously doubted that her survival instinct had changed.

“She’ll be _fine_ ,” Raven said as Bellamy entered the seating area of the dropship. “See? I adjusted the straps for her smaller frame. So unless we crash and burn, she’s just as safe as the rest of us. Worry isn’t a good look on you, Murphy, so chill.”

“If you say so,” Murphy retorted, though it was all in good nature.

The smaller person spoken of was Murphy and Emori’s three-year-old daughter, Kaya. She was quieter than her one-year-old brother, Olly, but infinitely more trouble. Bellamy had lost count of how many times they’d had to stop work to search for Kaya, who was usually tucked asleep in some compartment or another.

“I want out!” Kaya said, squirming as Emori strapped her into her seat. “I don’t like this.”

“Yeah, well, you’re staying there until we’re on the ground,” Murphy said, glancing over at Bellamy as he passed them. Olly was asleep in his father’s arms, his dark curls plastered against his cheek in the enclosed space of the dropship. “Hey, Bell.”

“Right. So, I started the launch sequence an hour ago, which means we should be about fifteen minutes from kissing this place goodbye for good,” Raven said, swinging down from the second-tier of the ship.

“Hey now, we might want to come back,” Murphy said. “You know, for old time’s sake.”

“Shut up,” Emori said, rolling her eyes as she took Olly from Murphy’s arms and settled him into the second of the two adjusted seats for the little bodies. “You hate this place.”

“You’re right, I do,” Murphy readily agreed. “Goodbye stale air and algae salads, hello sunlight and mutated fresh meat.”

Bellamy let their familiar voices wash over him as he sat next to Echo, who was sitting quietly in her seat . . . and had been for the last half hour. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved in silent words.

After Clarke’s first message, Echo had stopped coming into his bunk now and then. She hadn’t spoken about it or seemed upset; she knew what Clarke meant to Bellamy, and what they two of them had had was nothing like that.

“You’re happy,” Echo said, opening her eyes when he sat down. “And when Clarke sees the ship, she will be, too.”

“Are you happy?” Bellamy asked. “We’re going back. We’ll uncover the bunker and you can be with your people again.”

“If they remember my banishment, that won’t happen,” Echo said, shrugging. “And they’ve had nothing to do but remember, trapped in there as we have been trapped in here.”

“We’ll see,” was all Bellamy said, because that was all he could say.

They had been trapped, but they were about to shake their chains and find freedom again. He would have forgiven Echo after the time that had passed between now and Praimfaya, but then he wasn’t a Grounder, not like she was or her people. And even though they had come together into Wonkru in the end, who was to say how long that would last . . . or had lasted?

Praimfaya had changed more than the world. It had changed minds and beliefs, too.

But all Bellamy thought of when the dropship finally came away from the Ark and fell to Earth, was that he would finally, _finally_ , see Clarke.

 

~

 

It took them about two hours to drive down from the cliffs to the landing site of the dropship.

As she drove, Clarke tried not to think about what it would be like seeing her friends again. It was a moment that she had been hoping for years would happen and now it was finally upon her.

“Tell me about them again,” Madi said. “Please?”

Clarke smiled and told the girl about her friends again.

“First off, you’ll know who Raven is right away, not because of her leg, but because she’ll probably say ‘who’s this kid?’ and ask a lot of questions about our eyes. Emori has a tattoo on her face and looks kind of like you, small and cute. Monty is really smart but sweet, so you can definitely hug him. Harper has sun hair, like mine, and tells great stories. Murphy is nice, too, but you might not like him at first. Echo is tall and quiet, and I really didn’t know her very well, but I think she’s going to be happy to be back.”

“And Bellamy?” Madi asked, since Clarke had paused, as she always did before speaking about him.

“He’ll be happy, too,” Clarke said quietly. “The first thing he’ll do is take a big, deep breath of the air and then he’ll think of his sister, Octavia, and how soon he can see her.”

“We’ll help him,” Madi stated firmly. She’d heard about the people in the bunker as much as she’d heard about the ones in space. “I want to see Octavia, too.”

“And you will, my little Nightblood,” Clarke agreed. “I promise.”

 

When they came upon the dropship, the trees around were still smoking from the fire of the engines. The scent of burnt wood and hot metal was thick in the air and smoke drifted across the ground, masking a clear view of the dropship as Clarke drove the rover up and parked it a few hundred yards away.

She turned the engine off and sat there for a moment, heart pounding. This was it. She could see that the ship’s door was open and make figures moving hazily about, but she really couldn’t pin names to them. Not yet.

“Stay close, okay?” she told Madi, and then opened the door.

 

~

 

Bellamy heard the quiet purr of a rover’s engines over the cooling _tick-tick-tick_ of the dropship engine. Instinct drove his hand to rest on the gun holstered at his hip, but hope made his heart race as he saw the rover pull up, masked by the smoke curling around the dropship from the burnt trees.

And then she was there, walking through the smoke.

Clarke’s hair was shorter, bits of bright red peeking through the bright gold. Her eyes were a vivid, gleaming silver that was so different from the blue that he remembered even though he knew that her eyes were going to be different. She had told him so.

She moved differently, too. Easier. The weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders, and there was now a quiet serenity about her. But that was also matched by a hopeful eagerness as she came closer.

And then she saw him.

 

~

 

He was paler, his tan leeched from his skin by the absence of true sunlight in space. And a little thinner, too, no doubt due to limited rations. But there was still that confident tilt to his shoulders that she had missed, and when Bellamy’s gaze met hers, it was as warm and steady as she remembered.

Clarke didn’t think, she only reacted. She darted forward with soft little cry of joy, and a few moments later Bellamy was there, too, and she was crushed against him, her face over his shoulder and his arms around her waist. Her toes brushed the ground and she felt weightless, as light as air, with how absolutely happy she was.

“You’re here,” she murmured, tears burning in her eyes.

“I’m here,” Bellamy said, his voice soft.

Clarke didn’t want to let go of him, not yet, but the others had come up by now. And so she stepped back and greeted them, too, hugs and laughter and tears a common sight of the next few minutes. Murphy introduced his two children with casual pride, and the two blinked up at her with wide eyes, no doubt unsure about the stranger before them. Clarke in turn introduced Madi, and she was quickly in better graces with the two children than Clarke, speaking softly to them in the Grounder tongue.

“We got your messages,” Raven said once the initial reunion was over. “All of them. But since the Ark sucks, obviously we couldn’t reply, so sorry about that.”

“But you knew I was alive,” Clarke said, smiling.

“Yeah, about that, miss Silver Eyes,” Raven said, her eyes narrowing in recognizable curiosity as she peered at Clarke’s face.

“Hey, Clarke!” Murphy called from where he stood by the rover. “You got anything to eat?”

 

~

 

Bellamy didn’t want to focus on unloading the meager dropship supplies into the back of Clarke’s rover and talking about sleeping arrangements back at the old dropship. He wanted to hold Clarke again or, hell, just talk with her. He didn’t have to see her, he could even use a walkie or something. For after six years of forced silence on his side, it was absolute bliss to talk with her. Even if it was just simple things like “Mind carrying that box of algae powder over there?” or “I forgot how green everything is”.

But then they were at the old dropship, the rover was unloaded and Madi, Kaya, and Olly were playing by the fire, the two younger children looking with wary fascination at the dancing orange flames as Madi told them in Grounder what fire was.

Monty and Harper had disappeared into the woods after a brief conference with Clarke, probably to ask about the conditions of the Earth now. Bellamy didn’t expect them back until morning.

Raven was sitting with her legs stretched out to the fire, fiddling with Clarke’s makeshift radio and “making it better” as she’d said.

Echo had disappeared, too, after telling Bellamy that she wanted to reacquaint herself with the woods again. This was a few minutes after Monty and Harper’s departure, and he had wryly mentioned that he hoped she didn’t stumble across them. Murphy had overheard that and made his usual kind of comment on the matter, to which Madi had questioned him about it, resulting in a classic Murphy method of dodging the bullet by giving her some form of bullshit which Bellamy saw that the silver-eyed girl didn’t believe for a moment.

Emori was stirring up algae and meat stew over the fire, alternating between watching the food and keeping Olly’s hands away from the flames.

Bellamy was currently watching Madi and Kaya drawing in the dirt with sticks when Clarke came up to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he slid his arm about her waist, the two of them standing there like there hadn’t been a six year gap and they’d all been living here since Praimfaya.

“He is absolutely adorable,” Clarke said, pointing at Olly, who was now sitting next to Emori and just watching the fire with wide brown eyes. “I love him.”

And then she looked up at Bellamy, her eyes glinting like coins in the firelight.

“I missed you,” she said, the admission holding more weight to it than those three simple words stood by themselves.

Bellamy nodded, the gesture showing his own mirroring emotions. He had missed her, too. Those fourteen months when he thought her dead were ones he didn’t want to live again, not with the feelings of loss they held. Even when her death had given him the drive to survive because that was what she would have wanted.

But Clarke was alive and here and so was he.

“Will they miss you if I take you away?” she asked, glancing at the others.

“No,” he said.

 

~

 

Clarke wasn’t sure exactly _what_ they were going to do, but she knew where they were going. The small bunker that Finn had discovered was another part of her little world that she had transformed into a home, one that she kept ready in case she and Madi needed to hide from something. And when they drew near to the entrance, she saw that Bellamy remembered it.

The walk through the woods had been quiet even though she had a million, billion things stored up to say to him. It was like that now, once he was here, strong and reassuring as always, everything was lost and she was left grasping for the scraps.

But it was still enough. He could have gone mute and it would still have been enough.

Inside, Clarke lit one of the oil lamps sitting on the dusty tables and then sat down awkwardly on the creaking couch. Bellamy still stood, looking about the place, at the two beds made with furs and blankets alike, the art supplies that Clarke kept saving for something special that never seemed to come – though she had a sketchbook in the rover full of sketches of the world as it came to life again, and then of Madi – and the carefully stacked and sealed bins of food.

“It’s like nothing really happened here at all, not really,” Bellamy said, a quiet smile touching the corners of his mouth.

“Can you still think that, after all that _has_ happened?” she asked.

He shrugged, moving to sit next to her. “Sometimes. It helped a little up in the Ark, but not for long. I was never the best at dreaming about what wasn’t right there in front of me. Not like you.”

He looked at her then, that quiet smile still there though this time it seemed meant just for her. And because they were already so close, because this time Clarke let herself try and count his freckles and fail because she kept looking at his mouth, because it seemed inevitable that this moment would come one day, she closed her eyes and leaned forward.

It was almost magnetic, the way their mouths found each other so easily.

 

~

 

Bellamy told himself that he wouldn’t kiss Clarke.

He had told himself it the first moment he’d seen her running towards him that morning. He had told himself it in those stolen moments of quiet six years ago before the final countdown for survival had begun. He had told himself it even further back when she left him after Mount Weather.

And he told himself it now, sitting next to her in the quiet of the bunker with the soft yellow glow of lamplight flickering over her features and glinting off her eyes.

But then she looked at him and leaned in, and he leaned in too and kissed her. It was so simple, really, once their lips touched. It was like kissing Clarke was as normal as breathing, as living.

She tasted sweet, and Bellamy couldn’t really think why considering sugar was something long gone, but the fact remained.

 

~

 

Clarke hadn’t planned on kissing Bellamy, not intentionally. Sure, they had gone off alone, but didn’t really mean anything. She had wanted him and quiet and a chance to talk without really knowing what they were going to talk about, but now she just wanted him.

She had wanted him for six years.

At first, their kisses seemed quiet and innocent, like a shy hello. But then she wanted more and he moved closer and the kisses grew deeper, hungrier. Her skin ached for his touch and her clothes felt constricting.

She kissed Bellamy desperately now, pulling him closer and closer. Her fingers were tangled in his hair, his thick curls soft against her touch. His fingers were in her hair, but one slowly drifted down to her side and lower to her hip, like he was counting her ribs on the way.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said roughly, reverently, like her name was the only thing worth saying.

She leaned back, looking up at him where he was braced above her on the couch, his hair hanging around his face and framing his features in shadow. And the light she saw shining in his eyes matched the feeling that pounded strong and sure in her heart and bones, in every fiber of her being.

“I love you,” Clarke told him.

 

~

 

She loved him.

Bellamy had guessed at it, hoped for it, but it was nothing compared to hearing it from her own lips. The same lips that he wanted to kiss again and again until he knew nothing else but the taste of her.

“I’ve loved you before I even knew it,” he said.

And then he kissed her again, and lost himself.

 

~

 

Later, Clarke lay warm against Bellamy under the blankets of the bed they’d crawled into, blinkingly sleepily up at the dancing shadows on the wall from the dying flickers of the lamp’s flame. His heartbeat thudded solid and real against her back, and his arms were solid and real against the bare skin of her stomach.

This wasn’t a dream.

She rolled over onto her side and watched him sleep. His freckles stood out in sharper detail against the sun-starved paleness of his once-tan skin, which she was sure would quickly gain that brown glow after a few days in the sun. His hair was tousled and soft against his forehead, which she brushed aside gently, smiling to herself at how _easy_ it was to love Bellamy and be loved in return.

They were together again, and this time in a new way for the two of them, but one that felt natural and right. Inevitable.

At her touch, Bellamy opened his eyes and found her gaze in the sputtering light.

“Leave me alone,” he mumbled, but a smile pulled slightly at one corner of his mouth. He tugged her to him, and she nestled her head on his shoulder, her cheek warm against his skin. “Just . . . enjoy the moment, okay?”

She nodded, fighting away a yawn.

And this time, when she slept, she didn’t need to dream. For Bellamy was here with her.

Finally.


	5. Swimming Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> s1 fluff inspired by book Bellarke fluff

_Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things.”_

Bellamy couldn’t have known how much that quiet, unexpected sentence meant to Clarke. It ran in her head like a looped video for days, weeks after he said it. It helped her focus on what needed to be done.

And it made her see Bellamy in a new light, like a slowly brightening room suddenly illuminated. For she had already begun to shift her views of the tall, swaggering rebel in a more favorable manner once his motives had been laid bare. He wasn’t a bad person any more than she was. True, his intentions hadn’t been carried out in the best of ways, but was such a thing ever possible when survival was at stake?

Finn was recovering from his poisoned dagger wound, with Raven constantly at his side. Clarke was still a little bitter at the brash, flirty spacewalker for trapping her feelings so easily, but she really couldn’t blame him entirely. Still, he _could_ have told her about Raven at least, instead of leading her on with false hope.

But that was in the past, and she had moved on. They were still practically strangers to each other, as were almost everyone else in this camp. She still didn’t trust Bellamy, not really, though she thought that probably, one day, she could.

Today, Clarke needed to get away from camp, even if it was just for an hour or two. Seeing that fresh water hadn’t been collected for that week, she decided to do it herself. The volunteer food team had fashioned a sort of sled on which to drag the full water containers back from the river which was about a three-mile roundtrip.

As she was standing by the sled, calculating whether she’d need help in dragging the heavier weight of full containers back to camp, Bellamy came into view in the early morning light.

“You won’t be able to go by yourself,” he said bluntly, once he’d quickly concluded why she was standing there. “The sled will be too heavy, and you know we’ve got hostile Grounders out there. Going anywhere alone is a death wish.”

Clarke eyed Bellamy as he walked over, his hatchet swinging from its loop at his belt, the handle hitting his thigh with every step. He raised an eyebrow at her look, as if daring her to contradict him. She wouldn’t, because he was right: she couldn’t go by herself.

“Right,” she said, nodding. She glanced over her shoulder at the still mostly-asleep camp. Smoke trickled up from smoldering campfires to meet the morning fog that lay thick and gray over the forest, blurring the shapes of the low tents scattered about the dropship. “I guess I’ll go wake someone up.”

“No need,” Bellamy said, bending down and picking up one the long branches that served as handles for the sled. “I’ll go. Unless you’ve got a problem with me, princess?”

His voice was both teasing and challenging, which was his attitude half of the time . . . when he wasn’t showing those odd, unexpected moments of kindness and understanding.

Bellamy was an enigma to Clarke, and she found herself wanting to unravel and discover his mystery. It was probably the same allure that had so many of the girls in camp in Bellamy’s tent at night, giving him no lack of company.

“No, I don’t,” Clarke said, picking up the other handle. She glanced up at Bellamy, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as was necessary to pull the sled with a partner. “Let’s go. The sooner we leave, the sooner we get back.”

 

~

 

At first, Bellamy didn’t like Clarke. At all. The blonde girl had challenged him in the first moment he’d seen her, and she really hadn’t stopped since then. But now . . . now, there was a sort of appeal to her stubbornness.

She’d surprised him, changing his views of her as a pampered, stuck-up entitled kid to a fierce, stubborn girl who faced their odds of survival like she could single-handedly ensure that the camp made it on the ground. She was as smart as she was pretty, and Bellamy had reluctantly admitted to himself that he was glad Clarke was here.

He didn’t think he could have managed leading the camp by himself, not now when he had Clarke to help. They made a good team, and the camp knew it – that was why things had gone so well since they had started working together. Even with the Murphy incident, the Grounder attacks, the storm, and Finn’s almost-death.

As Bellamy and Clarke pulled the water sled through the waking forest, fog curling around their feet and the damp undergrowth slapping against their boots, slowly soaking through the thick synthetic leather, he found that he enjoyed her company. They didn’t talk beyond the random comment on the foliage, how much water would last in the camp before the next run was necessary, and stopping to make sure any odd noises weren’t made by incoming Grounders.

Until Clarke mentioned the imminent arrival of the Ark.

“Do you think we’ll move camp, or will the dropship site be our base?” she asked. He glanced at her when she started speaking, but she kept her eyes fixed ahead. The fine, pale strands of hair that had escaped from where she had pulled them back clung to her forehead with the thin sheen of sweat from pulling the sled. “There’s over two thousand people on the Ark, so we’d have to expand our perimeter, maybe so much that getting water won’t be such a trek” – she huffed a quiet, brief laugh at that – “but the Grounders would still be here.”

“For all we know, there are Grounders everywhere,” Bellamy replied, refusing to talk about the fact that soon, in only a few months, their little camp society would be disbanded and swallowed up by the rigorous order that was the Ark. Yes, things would be different on the ground, but he doubted that the difference would be very big. “We’re going to have a fight on our hands, no matter what, with us against the Grounders wanting us gone and probably dead. We’re the invaders in their eyes. Hell, I’d feel the same way if I was in their shoes. But we’ve got as much a claim to the Earth as they do.”

“There’s always diplomacy,” Clarke started, but Bellamy interrupted her with a laugh.

“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “They’re really into that.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Clarke insisted, though he heard in her tone that she knew what he meant.

The Grounders attacked first, and asked questions after . . . and that’s if they felt like it. On the ground, it was kill or be killed, and Bellamy had no intention of dying.

 

~

 

The fog was almost gone by the time they reached the river, the water rushing quick and clear over the shallow parts, the current hiding its power in the darker, deeper parts. There hadn’t been any sightings of dangerous creatures in this river, and it was a popular place for those who wanted a bath or a chance to escape the heat of the later part of the day, which was normally when the water team went out.

Even in the relative cool of morning, there was still a layer of sweat over Clarke’s skin, making her hair stick to her face and her clothes feel thick and confining on her body. But she didn’t complain, not outwardly, as she and Bellamy filled the water containers one by one until the sled was heavy with the replenished water supply for camp.

But when Clarke went to pick up the handle for the trip back, Bellamy groaned.

“Jeez, take a break, will you?” he said from where he sat on the rocks of the bank, a little way down from where the sled was. He looked up at her with that slow, rakish grin of his. “They’re not desperate for water. And since you aren’t one of the regular water collectors, I’m guessing you wanted to leave camp for a bit, right?”

Damn him. Bellamy was a little smart for his own good, especially now. Yes, Clarke had wanted to get away from camp, to leave the tightly-packed tents and the murmuring voices of the Hundred . . . but that didn’t make her lazy.

But, it wasn’t lazy to take just a few minutes to sit and enjoy the scenery and sunrise, was it?

“Fine,” she said, climbing down to sit on another rock, just a few feet from Bellamy. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Bellamy said, leaning back and bracing himself on his palms. He tipped his head up and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. “It still feels like a dream sometimes, being here on the ground. I thought that if I ever came down, I’d be an old man. But here I am.”

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed softly.

It was moments like this when she found herself outrageously, ridiculously, and inexplicably attracted to the boy who had followed his sister to the ground. Most of the time, when he was in camp and knew there were people watching him, Bellamy held himself with this bravado that gave the assumption that he knew precisely what he was doing and doubt was foreign to him.

But now, alone and in the forest, his guard down and his eyes closed, that was when Clarke found him, well, beautiful.

The pale gold of the rising sun accented the freckles scattered across Bellamy’s features and made the dark, wild curls of his sweat-damp hair look soft and vibrant. His casual, relaxed posture softened the lines of his shoulders and arms, but there was no hiding the powerful curves of muscle.

Clarke wondered if she would like if those arms were around her, and if a night with Bellamy would help further erase the quiet pain she felt whenever she thought of that night with Finn. She knew that Bellamy probably wouldn’t say no if she asked, considering he didn’t say no to the girls who came to his tent. But she wasn’t that kind of girl, nor did she want to be. And as co-leaders, she couldn’t bring that kind of tension into their new and still-fragile responsibility relationship.

She didn’t realize how long she’d been staring until Bellamy opened his eyes and looked at her, a smirk curling at the edges of his mouth.

“See something you like, princess?”

“No,” Clarke said, looking away, but she heard the lie in her voice. And, judging by the self-satisfied chuckle from Bellamy, he’d heard it too. “Shut up.”

“Hey, I’m not judging,” Bellamy said.

She heard him stand up, but she still couldn’t find the courage to look at him again. Not yet. Her cheeks still felt hot, and she didn’t want to show proof of what she had done, at least not any more than she’d already shown. But when she heard clothing dropping to the ground, instinctual curiosity made her look back at him.

Bellamy stood shirtless on the rock, and was bent over in the process of untying his shoes.

“What are you doing?” Clarke spluttered, knowing that her face was still hot, but it was now in an embarrassed confusion than embarrassed appreciation.

Okay, so maybe there was a little appreciation mixed in too, because _damn_. Bellamy was also too handsome for his own good, and he knew it. Which Clarke should have been annoyed at, only . . . she wasn’t.

“Going for a swim,” Bellamy replied calmly, as if stripping half-naked in front of an audience was something absolutely normal. “You coming or what?”

“Me? With you?” She was still spluttering, which needed to stop. Now.

Tossing his boots aside, Bellamy straightened and then shrugged as he undid his belt. Soon, he stood in only his underwear, the unisex black boxers that were standard issue on the Ark.

A moment later, he jumped into the deeper part of the river, ducking under and rising with a sputter as he slicked his damp hair back from his face. With the current lapping at his stomach and water dripping down his chest, sparkling where the sun caught the droplets, he waved at Clarke where she sat, still in some mild form of shock.

“Come on in, princess,” Bellamy called, throwing water at her. The drops splashed at her boots and made little circles on her pants. “The water’s great.”

 _Why the hell not?_ Clarke thought. _It’s not like swimming with Bellamy means anything, not really. We’re just cooling off a bit before heading back to camp. We don’t like each other, and everyone knows it. I’d take the offer if this was anyone else. Bellamy isn’t different. He’s just . . . Bellamy._

“All right, fine,” she said, though a little huffily, getting to her feet. “But only a few minutes. We can’t play around all day.”

 

~

 

Bellamy bent his knees and sunk down in the river up to his chin, the cool water rushing around his skin and washing the sweat and dirt from the past few days. He hadn’t washed since they’d came down to the ground, not like this. The rain that first night had sort of counted, and he wiped down with a damp rag every other night or so, but this felt absolute.

He didn’t think Clarke would have joined him, but then she was surprising him a lot these past few days.

She kept on the side of modesty when she waded into the river, keeping her sleeveless undershirt on over her underwear. Her pale legs seemed to glow in the brightening sunlight as she walked towards him where he crouched in the deeper part of the river, and her hips swayed with an unconscious seductiveness that he was suddenly mesmerized by.

But, since this was Clarke, he doubted that, if he made a move, which he wouldn’t, she’d stop him cold. Bellamy had guessed at whatever had happened between her and Finn, but with the arrival of Raven it seemed that whatever had been short-lived and ended.

“Okay, this is pretty nice,” Clarke admitted once she had reached the darker, slower water and submerged once, coming up with a reluctant smile.

“See, sometimes you got to take a few minutes and just enjoy Earth a bit,” Bellamy said, brushing his fingers through the water and watching the rippling wakes left behind. “It doesn’t have to be all survival.”

“I know,” Clarke said, sighing heavily. “I know. But–”

“Nope,” Bellamy interrupted quickly. “Give it a break, princess. Don’t think about anything except what you’re doing right now. Breathe. Splash about. Watch the birds. Just . . . enjoy the moment.”

“I’m trying,” she muttered, shooting him a half-serious glare. “But you won’t shut up.”

And then she scooped a handful of water at him, sending fresh rivulets of water running down his face and splashing into his eyes. Bellamy stood in stunned surprise for a moment before he grinned, shaking his head like a dog.

“All right,” he said, standing up, “it’s on.”

Clarke yelped, a half-startled, half-laughing sound when he slapped his palms down, splashing her more thoroughly than she had with him. She responded with another splash of her own, and so it went for a few happy, mindless minutes.

When the water stilled and they looked at each other again, they were still laughing. Bellamy’s hair hung thick and damp into his eyes, and Clarke’s eyes sparkled in the strengthening sunlight. And suddenly he realized that he wanted to kiss her as she stood there, chest-high in the river, her smile curving the corners of her small, pretty mouth.

And so he did.

 

~

 

One minute they were laughing like kids, splashing around as if there wasn’t a care in the world, and the next Bellamy got this strange, intense look over his features. That was just before he moved forward, sliding an arm around Clarke’s waist as he kissed her.

While the idea leading to the action seemed spontaneous, the kiss itself wasn’t. Bellamy’s mouth moved slow and deliberate against hers, unlike that first, desperate kiss with Finn. Clarke didn’t really have time to react, just stand there, until Bellamy pulled away a moment later and looked down at her.

“What the hell was that for?” she said, her voice sharp but also breathy because, oh, that kiss.

“Are you going to slap me?” Bellamy asked, his voice a low rumble against her chest.

He was still holding her, his arm warm around her waist, a pleasant opposite to the cool of the river moving around them.

Clarke didn’t know what she was going to do. Not yet. She thought about slapping him, which was a reasonable response. She also thought about pushing him away and demanding to know what reckless, thoughtless idea made him kiss her.

But she also thought about kissing him back, which was the first thing she had thought of doing when his lips touched hers.

“I don’t know you, Bellamy,” she said.

“No one knows anyone down here,” he replied, “not really. Except for me and O, Jasper and Monty, and now Finn and Raven, we’re all strangers to each other.”

Clarke nodded, and then kissed him.

She wrapped one arm around his waist and looped the other around his neck, holding him against her. She felt his smile against her mouth as their lips moved in a way that felt familiar and dangerous and one hundred percent exciting. He was sure and steady, and she was soft and needy, sighing in appreciation at the way he made her feel.

“Wait,” she said, suddenly. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“What?” Bellamy frowned a little, his mouth slack as he gasped for air in the pause she’d initiated.

“We can’t do this,” Clarke said, shaking her head and letting go of him. “I can’t. It’s . . . I shouldn’t have . . .”

“I get it,” Bellamy said, pushing his hair out of his face, trying to smooth the tangles she’d made with her fingers. “I know what you think of me, Clarke.”

“I just don’t think it’s smart, that’s all,” she explained, though she felt stupid right now. “We have to focus on getting ready for the coming winter, for the Ark, the Grounders . . .”

Bellamy smirked. “Ever heard of multi-tasking?”

Clarke growled in frustration and splashed at him, to which he responded to with a laugh.

“C’mon, princess,” he said, moving towards her again. The look in his dark eyes was tempting, which made it dangerous. “I like you. You kissed me back, so you like me a little too, right? So why run? Let’s see what happens.”

“I don’t know,” Clarke hedged, though if she was honest with herself she would have said yes to the proposal. “I just, I like my heart, okay? I don’t want to get it broken all over again.”

“Oh, princess,” Bellamy said, reaching out to tug on a water-heavy strand of her hair. “I think you’d break my heart before I broke yours.”

“Yeah?” she countered, folding her arms. “How so?”

Bellamy shrugged, looking up at the sky, which was now bright and studded with long, wispy clouds.

“Because I don’t love many people but I think I could love you,” he said, not meeting her gaze.

That tugged at Clarke, the way he said it – soft and hesitant, like a secret.

“That’s a heavy thing to say to a stranger,” she finally replied, this time as the one to look away, over at where the sled was waiting at the top of the bank. “Sorry, but I’m not one to give trust lightly.” She laughed once, bitterly. “You can thank my mom for that.”

“Not Finn?” Bellamy said, and Clarke knew that was what he had probably expected her to say.

Finn wasn’t to blame for the fact that she had trusted him so quickly after meeting him. And it wasn’t that he was a bad kind of guy. He was just, as he had jokingly said to her (though now it had become a truth), around and passably cute. She had liked him, trusted him, hoped for more, but it had proven itself not to be.

Clarke looked at Bellamy, curious at how the guy known for a good night in camp was interested in her, and in this kind of way, too. The way he looked at her was different than he had looked at anybody that she had observed.

“You literally have your pick of the camp,” she said. “Why me?”

 

~

 

Why did he like Clarke?

It was a reasonable question, considering a few weeks ago they’d practically hated each other. But time seemed different on the ground, and the events they’d faced had brought them together more quickly than anything else could have. Clarke had defended Bellamy to the chancellor, even though she knew that he had shot Jaha, when she could have reasonably argued for his death. She worked hard for the survival of the camp, looking out for others before herself.

And she was the first to believe that Bellamy could be better than what he had been.

“Because you forgave me when I didn’t deserve it,” he finally said, and he saw remembrance flicker in Clarke’s eyes at the mention of that night when they were both broken and lost in their pasts. “You believed I was worthy of a second chance.”

“You are,” Clarke reasserted firmly.

“That’s why I want you instead of any other girl,” Bellamy said.

Clarke nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Great. He hadn’t meant to make her cry, but he had meant what he said. Every word.

It caught him off guard, these feelings that Clarke had brought to life in him. They were as and new and unsettling as they were unexpected. But there they were, and he didn’t they were going away anytime soon. And so he had acted upon them when the opportunity occurred, which had been rash and probably quite stupid, but he didn’t regret a thing.

 

~

 

Clarke didn’t know what to say or what to do, especially after something like that. It was like all these feelings had come hurtling out of nowhere, though once she stopped to think about them they made perfect sense.

But because she felt lost, she skipped to what she did know about.

“We should probably get back to camp now,” she said.

Bellamy nodded, the moment between them – the kiss, the quiet words, the question of what if they did something about all of it – broken into awkwardness.

They waded out of the river and pulled on their clothes in silence, carefully looking away from each other like even the smallest glance was a terrible thing.

Back at camp, the water delivered and her shoulders sore from hauling the full sled, Clarke was able to avoid Bellamy for the rest of the day. And it seemed that they had mutual intentions, since he stayed particularly busy as well.

But at night, when the camp was going back to sleep and the once-bright fires were dying into muted embers, Clarke turned the corner of the dropship and found Bellamy leaning against the side, looking up at the night sky.

“Hey,” she said lamely, knowing that it was best to confront him in the forgiving darkness of the night than in the revealing light of day.

“Hey,” he echoed, glancing at her.

She leaned against the ship next to him, close but not close enough to touch without moving closer, and followed his gaze up into the black, star-studded sky.

Each miniscule light glittered and sparked with a life of its own, and Clarke smiled a little to herself as she thought that, while the stars seemed so small, in reality they were enormous balls of fire. And that made them even more beautiful in her mind, though she was sure they would be quite terrible up close, they were lovely at a distance.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Bellamy said, and she glanced over to find him looking at her.

“I was thinking about the stars,” she said, shrugging.

“What about them?” he said. “We saw plenty of them on the Ark, didn’t we?”

“You’re looking at the sky, too,” Clarke pointed out.

“Yeah, because it looks different from the ground, and it feels nice to look up at where I was instead of down where I wanted to be.”

“Wow,” Clarke said softly, smiling now at Bellamy instead of the stars.

“What?”

Their gazes caught and held each other now, the stars forgotten.

“Are you going to avoid me from now on?” Bellamy asked, and she heard both the hope and practicality in his voice. He wanted her to say no, but he was ready for her to say yes.

“No, because that’s stupid and childish,” Clarke replied, even though it really wasn’t a reply to the question she knew he was really asking.

“I told you that you’d break my heart before I broke yours.” Bellamy turned so that just his shoulder was leaning against the dropship and he was facing her, all shoulders and soft, wild hair and dark eyes. “Don’t feel bad. I get it. I’m not your type, huh?”

“Oh, you are,” Clarke said without thinking, but she didn’t want to take it back.

“So it’s okay to do this?” Bellamy asked, stepping forward.

He leaned down and kissed her soft and slow, his hands at his sides and his body close, but careful to touch her only with his mouth . . . until Clarke tipped her chin up to meet his kiss, her hands sliding up into his hair so she could tangle her fingers into those soft, wild curls of his. Only then did Bellamy lift his hands to cup her jaw in his palms, the callouses on his fingers gentle against her cheekbones.

They stayed there in the shadows of the dropship for a while, until Clarke realized she hadn’t really answered his question. Not with words, which she knew were important, too.

“Um, yes,” she said, grinning up at him. “It’s totally okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-watched The 100 for probably the 6th time when I wrote this, which is gave me a lot of nostalgic Bellarke feels back when it was just the delinquents against the world. This one-shot is from an idea I had if Bellamy and Clarke had another, shorter “Day Trip” kind of scenario and acted upon that new, unexpected closeness of theirs. It’s also a little reminiscent of the books (which I love, too, but not as much as the show, sorry Ms. Morgan) and the first Bellarke moments in there.


	6. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pt1 of s2e16 finale feels - heavy angst alert.

It hurt like hell to let Clarke walk away.

Bellamy wanted to call to her, to somehow convince her to turn back and stay. He wanted to run after her and hold her tight, finding that inexplicable comfort she always seemed to bring him with her presence.

Finally, he straightened and nodded to himself, walking into the open gate of Camp Jaha alone. Each footstep away from Clarke felt like miles. Somehow, he made it past the gate and into the milling crowd. Teary-eyed thanks and somber hand-clasps met him as Bellamy headed towards the Ark and the drink he now desperately craved.

“Hey.” Miller came over to him and slung an arm around Bellamy’s shoulders. “Where’s Clarke?”

“Not here,” Bellamy replied, his voice tight. His throat felt full of unspoken words piling up like rocks, choking him and turning him mute.

“Where is she?” Octavia asked, she and Lincoln drifting close at that moment. She glanced up at her brother, her brow drawn in worry.

Bellamy just shook his head. He couldn’t talk right now, especially not about Clarke. He knew she needed to deal with what they had done . . . but he also needed her, too. Didn’t she know that?

She hadn’t been the only one to pull that lever in Mount Weather.

“Oh,” was all Miller said, and then he squeezed Bellamy’s arm in sympathy.

“Let’s get a drink,” Octavia said, lacing her fingers through Bellamy’s for a moment. “I think we’ve more than earned one.”

“Damn right,” Miller agreed.

 

***

 

Later, in the dark and with the help of several shots of Monty’s strong moonshine between the fresh weight of what he’d had to do inside the mountain and the realization that Clarke had left them, had left _him_ , Bellamy felt numb. He sat by himself in a corner of the makeshift bar that had seemed to spring up in a matter of hours as most of the camp’s inhabitants came for drinks.

He didn’t blame them.

Octavia and Lincoln had left about a half hour ago, or maybe it was just a few minutes. Time seemed irrelevant to Bellamy right now, his senses dulled by the alcohol swirling through his system. Miller, Monty, Harper, and Wick were at a nearby table, either lost in their individual drinks or talking quietly amongst each other. Bellamy had a caught a little of what they’d said earlier – brief thoughts on what the Grounders would do now that their tentative peace had been tossed aside by the Commander; Wick mentioning that Raven was staying overnight in medical for injuries contracted to her leg during the explosion in the dam – before tuning them out.

Slowly, one by one, the room emptied until Bellamy was the only one left. He blinked in what felt like slow-motion, his fingers curled around the edges of his empty cup. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to close his eyes and forget, even if just for one night.

He deserved a break, didn’t he? He hadn’t asked for this kind of responsibility, even if he took it because that was who he was; he protected people. In the beginning, the only person he’d come to Earth to protect was his sister. Now, it was his people’s protection that weighed on his shoulders.

Bellamy kept replaying those last moments with Clarke. The pain in her eyes, the same pain he felt echoed in himself. The unexpected warm press of her lips against his cheek and the fierce, almost desperate grip of her arms around him afterwards . . . right before she pulled away. Before she left him.

 _“I bear it so they don’t have to,”_ she’d said.

_No, you don’t have to do this alone. We can bear it together._

_Please, Clarke. Let me help you._

_Don’t leave me._

He should have said that. He should have told her what he had felt in those moments. Maybe if she’d known that they were able to help each other, that he could lift the burdens she felt on her shoulders as she lifted the pain from his heart, maybe she would have stayed.

Suddenly, Bellamy got to his feet and threw his empty cup against the wall with a growl. _Damn_ Clarke! She’d taken the coward’s path when she ran from the camp, from her pain. She’d left him to face everything on his own – the questions, the looks, Abby’s desperate need to maintain her daughter’s safety, the consequences of their actions inside the mountain.

He’d already gotten the looks, those quiet glances that were either terrified at his actions, shocked at the lengths they’d gone to rescue their friends, or condemning of those same lengths. He knew he’d be forever seen as a murderer, screw the reasons or the fact that they’d had no other choice.

Hell, even _he_ saw himself as a murderer, his guilt lessened only by the fact that his people were safe because of what he’d done.

Bellamy staggered outside. His heartbeat sounded like a drum in his ears, echoing the war drums of the Grounders. There was that, too: the fact that, if the Commander hadn’t tossed their alliance aside, Skaikru wouldn’t have the blood of three hundred more people to their name. He wouldn’t have that blood on his hands.

He knew he was drunk. But he hadn’t been this smashed before, full of roiling anger and crashing despair. It was like the world had turned black and white, either this or that. He was angry one moment, and then empty the next. Each movement felt leaden and slow, like walking through waist-high sludge. His vision was both sharp and blurry, finding and losing focus every other minute.

Somehow, he managed to stay upright. Somehow, he managed to maintain some sense of normality . . . that, or people were drunk, too, and didn’t notice another stumbling, swaying body as abnormal. Somehow, he managed to find a bed and fall into it.

 

***

 

When Bellamy opened his eyes, he instantly regretted doing so.

His head was a mess, both mentally and physically. But mostly physically in the form of a jaw-clenching, temple-splitting headache. His mouth felt thick and dry, like he’d been eating dust. When he swallowed, his throat protested with sharp, scratchy twinges of pain.

For one blissful moment, Bellamy was ignorant of the reasons that had driven him to drink so much to bring such a hangover like this. But all too soon, the memories came, adding a new layer of pain, though purely mental.

“Hey there, big brother,” Octavia said a moment later, and Bellamy turned his head slowly towards the sound of her voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” he muttered darkly, closing his eyes and wishing that he was in the middle of a nightmare.

“Yeah, you look it, too,” Octavia added quietly. He heard her shuffle close and then her hand was brushing across his forehead, pushing his hair back in a gentle, calming gesture. “Clarke will come back, you know. One day she’ll just come walking through the gates with that smarmy look of hers and everything will be okay.”

“No, it won’t,” Bellamy said, his voice still dark. He opened his eyes and sat up, groaning at the pain that lanced behind his eyes at the movement. “What we did, O . . . you know we won’t ever be the same. We can’t.”

“I know,” his sister agreed, leaning forward and hugging him. She rested her chin on his shoulder, and he leaned his forehead against her shoulder. “I know, Bell.”

And it was only then, in the familiar comfort of his sister’s embrace, that Bellamy let the roiling emotions inside wash over him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the burning tears that sprang into them, and his shoulders only shook once or twice with his silent sobs, but he didn’t try to shove the pain away. He walked into it and drowned.

But only for a moment, before he swam to the surface, to reality, and swallowed the tears down.

“Thanks, O,” he said, leaning away from his sister and offering her a small, crooked smile. It didn’t feel real and he knew it, but it was a start. And Octavia knew it for what it was, offering a small, crooked smile of her own in return. Bellamy took a deep breath. “I’m good now.”

“Great,” she said, standing up and offering him a hand. “Come on then, big brother. Let’s get something to eat, and then we’ve got a camp to protect. After all we did to get our friends back, I’m not letting something like that happen again.”

Bellamy nodded decisively, getting to his feet, though a little stiffly and with several winces at the dizzying pain in his head. Hangovers were a _bitch_. But he’d let his pain rule him for long enough; it was useless to wallow.

There was work to be done. Clarke was gone, but the camp remained. And he knew that she wouldn’t abandon them forever.

They would meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pt 2 of my s2e16 one shots is the true fix-it, don't worry. This was just me being super angsty . . . surprise, surprise.


	7. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pt 2 of my s2e16 one shots -- this one is the legit Bellarke one, but there's still a lot of angst.

Clarke didn’t know how she’d managed to walk back to Camp Jaha.

It was like the miles passed in a forgotten blur, though if she stopped to think about it, she remembered landmarks, the puddle she’d sloshed through in the forest, and the bits of conversation she’d overheard.

She knew they’d had no choice; that it was kill or be killed. That’s how things worked on the ground, with survival coming at terrible, staggering costs. But she had crossed a line she could not erase nor escape when she’d pulled that lever and ended the lives of three hundred people.

It almost didn’t seem real, and those were the moments that she liked. Where she could pretend it had been a horrible nightmare that she would soon wake from. One pinch, one thought, and the terrible events would be gone, dusty memories tucked in the back of her mind. But Clarke couldn’t pretend that her actions were dreams; that she was still somehow one of the good guys.

If faced with the same choice to keep her people safe or let them die, she would pull the lever again.

They’d reached Camp Jaha now, the pale, bloody and limping line of rescued Arkers making their way through the open gate into the waiting arms of their relieved families. She watched from where she’d stopped several yards from the fence as parents wrapped their children up in happy tears and fierce embraces, couldn’t stop thinking of the children in the mountain with their silent, blistered faces. She couldn’t stop seeing those scattered bodies in the common dining room, their deaths heavy on her shoulders and their blood thick on her hands. She couldn’t seem to push away the fact of what she had done in exchange of the fact that her friends were alive because of what she’d done.

It was too much.

Just when Clarke felt like she would explode from the feelings pressing down on her, Monty walked over and hugged her. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. He was one of those who could understand what she felt because he’d helped her kill the mountain. His fingers were the ones who set the program to pull the irradiated air into Sector 5.

When Monty left, Bellamy was there. Clarke looked up at the features of the person she’d come to rely on as he came to stand next to her, his eyes on the camp in front of them.

“I think we deserve a drink,” Bellamy said.

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to forget the mountain and rejoice in the safety of her friends. She wanted to be that callous and heartless . . . but she wasn’t. She couldn’t face the ones who she’d gone so far to save.

“Have one for me,” she said.

“Hey,” Bellamy replied quietly, comfortingly, recognizing the pain in her voice. “We can get through this.”

Clarke bit her lip, wanting to stay silent. But she couldn’t hide from Bellamy. Not him. His hand had been warm over hers as they pulled the lever together, his gaze steadying through the weight of the choice they’d made.

“I’m not going in,” she said, shaking her head.

Bellamy turned to her. “Clarke, if you need forgiveness,” he said, “I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven, okay? Please . . . come inside.”

She shook head again, more vehemently this time. What forgiveness was there that could wash away the blood of _three hundred_ people? She wanted to believe that he could give her that, but she couldn’t lie to herself. Not with something like this.

“No, you don’t understand! Seeing their faces every day is just going to remind me of what I did to get them here, and–”

“What _we_ did,” Bellamy interrupted, reaching out to catch her hands with his. Their gazes met and locked, his eyes dark and understanding, centering her through the storm of emotions that whirled inside of her. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Clarke closed her eyes, feeling the hot sting of tears pressing against her eyelids. One slipped out of her eye and burned down her cheek.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” she whispered, barely hearing the words herself. “Bellamy . . .” – her voice slipped, a sob caught in her throat – “I _can’t_ go in there. I just can’t. Not yet.”

“And you don’t have to,” he said, gently tightening his grip on her hands. “You did your part. Our friends are home now. We’re done.”

Clarke nodded, biting back the sobs that filled her throat. But she couldn’t let them out, not now. Instead, she pulled Bellamy close and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. A moment later his arms came around her, warm on her back.

“Where will you go?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Bellamy said, leaning back far enough to look her in the eyes again. His gaze was as steady as it had been in the mountain. “So, let’s go.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, even though she wanted him to come with her. But she couldn’t be that selfish; he’d done so much already. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“No, you won’t,” Bellamy said firmly. A small, crooked smile that was trying too hard to be cheerful pulled at one corner of his mouth. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

 

~

 

They were miles away from Camp Jaha when night came.

Bellamy hadn’t thought he would leave the place he’d fought so hard to bring his friends back to, but then he hadn’t thought Clarke wouldn’t have been able to face those who she’d done so much to save. But he did know that he wouldn’t abandon her to the grief that weighed her down into silence, and so here he was.

Clarke was asleep by the fire they’d built in the curve of a fallen tree deep in the forest, far past the dropship, TonDC, and any part of Earth that they knew. It made sense for them to be here, though; to go somewhere fresh and new, untouched by memories.

Bellamy stared at the small, flickering orange flames of the fire, slowly stretching his legs out and flexing his still-booted feet. There was a tent in the pack he’d taken from camp, but the night was warm and clear enough to make the shelter unnecessary. Clarke had been all for leaving immediately without supplies, but Bellamy had convinced her to wait a few minutes while he slipped past the still half-chaotic crowd gathered around the rescued people to get two packs with a week’s worth of rations, the tent, and a few extra clips of ammo for his rifle and Clarke’s pistol.

He knew that Abby had probably already noticed that her daughter was missing and there would be patrols sent after them. But Clarke had said she wasn’t ready to go back, and so he would help her stay away until she was ready to face their people again.

Bellamy absently wondered if he would be missed as much as Clarke. Probably not, except maybe by Octavia. But even then, his sister had Lincoln, which was comforting to know that his sister had someone to watch over her.

Suddenly, Clarke cried out in her sleep. Bellamy looked at her, concern springing to life inside of his chest. Her eyes remained shut as her limbs twitched, half-visible emotions flickering across her features as she was caught in the throes of the terror that plagued her dreams. She jolted awake a moment later, eyes wide and unaware of her current surroundings. Sharp, gasping breaths came through her half-open mouth as she sat up, looking around in confusion until her searching gaze found Bellamy.

That’s when her features crumpled and Clarke seemed to transform into a little girl, her shoulders curling in with fear and sorrow.

“We killed them all,” she sobbed, shaking her head. “ _All_ of them.”

Bellamy stood up and went over to her, dropping to his knees as he gathered Clarke against him as she sobbed. He held her as she shook and whimpered, her pain echoed in him. Because he knew, _he knew_ , what she was dealing with. Hers wasn’t the only hand that pulled that lever down. He hadn’t let her be the one to carry the weight of a choice like that by herself, and he would do it again if he had to.

For as long as he was alive, he would be there for Clarke. She centered him and he needed that. He wanted that; he wanted _her_. And by the time Clarke’s sobs quieted and she was no longer clinging him like she was drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat, a blurry fact had become crystal clear to Bellamy.

He loved Clarke. It was a sneaky kind of love, lying quiet in the shadows until it suddenly sprang forward, strong and undeniable.

“We did kill them,” he said in the quiet, acknowledging that fact. There was no true way to escape it, and you could never slay your demons by running away from them. No, you faced them and all their horrible truths, knowing them for what they were. “They gave us no other choice, Clarke; you know that. We did what we had to.”

“I know,” she whispered, still in the circle of his arms.

“Hey,” Bellamy said, “it’s going to be okay.”

“It’s not okay right now,” Clarke muttered darkly.

She pulled away from him, blinking at him in the firelight, her cheeks shiny with drying tears. Her gaze was a mixture of pain and regret, but he saw that she was careful now to keep her emotions in check. Clarke was strong because she didn’t break, not like most people. She soldiered through what would tear most people apart.

Clarke reached out to touch the corner of Bellamy’s eye, catching one of the tears gathering and blurring his vision.

“Thank you for being here,” she said solemnly a moment later, wiping in a quick, efficient manner at her eyes. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze as she continued. “I know it seems cowardly of me to run, but thank you for making sure I didn’t run alone.”

Bellamy nodded, his jaw tight as his quiet tears slipped back into the dark cavern where he kept his emotions. He wished he was strong like Clarke, able to lock his feelings away so easily like she did. It helped when he had something else to focus on, which was why he tried to stay busy – with guarding the camp, searching for his friends, scouting the forest, hunting – but in moments like this, when there was nothing to occupy his time and keep his thoughts from gathering like storm clouds, it was harder.

And around Clarke, trusting her like he did, he never thought to hide.

 

~

 

Clarke didn’t want to think about what the soft, quiet look that Bellamy gave her in odd, unexpected moments meant. She didn’t want to guess wrong, to assume something that wasn’t there . . . even if she wanted it to be there.

And right now, she needed a distraction. They’d both been through _so much_ , but they’d been through it together. Bellamy hadn’t abandoned her; not in the mountain, and not even afterwards, when he could have let her go alone.

She wasn’t sure who moved forward first, her or Bellamy. One moment they were looking at each other in that quiet, understanding way with tears drying on her cheeks and the memory of his arms holding her together as she cried. And then the next moment, they were kissing.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss, but hungry and desperate. They needed each other, only this time it was the kind that had Bellamy’s skin hot and smooth against her palms and Clarke’s name on his tongue. She wanted to feel anything, _anything_ but the horrible emptiness inside her where it seemed she’d left her soul back in the mountain, and Bellamy was here and obviously willing.

There was a moment when he pulled away long enough for their gazes to meet, to give the chance for this to stop, for things to go back to how they had been. But she didn’t give that future a chance, pulling him back almost as soon as his mouth left hers.

She wanted this. She _needed_ this.

And after, as they lay tucked together under a blanket, the dark expanse of star-studded sky above them, Clarke wondered if this would be it. If they would move on and remember this night only in the odd glance every now and then.

But then she pushed such thoughts aside. She couldn’t think about that right now. The future was a hazy, unsure thing; the present was solid and real, with Bellamy’s heartbeat thudding in her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had Raign’s ‘Don’t Let Me Go’ on repeat while I wrote this, as it’s very fitting. And it seems like a kind of sequel to ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’, at least to me.  
> Anyways, I know this one ends kind of hanging. Like, is this a one-nighter situation or what? It’s meant to be like that, because I had a sort of that-night-with-Finn kind of scenario in my head, where they’re both dealing with what happened in the mountain and there’s all this tension between them, and so they just act on impulse on that tension.  
> Obviously, I’d like to think that, if something like this ever happened (YES PLEASE, SEASON 5!!!) that it would mean more than just one night. ‘Cause Bellarke being Bellarke, there’s just SO MUCH history between them for something like this to be nothing but eventual romance.  
> So, here you go. Nostalgic, fluffy, slightly angsty Bellarke feels.
> 
> [Random note: Remember how it seems kind of impossible that when all the kids are first on Earth and, as Murphy so eloquently stated, a lot of people were “in Pound Town”, that no one was pregnant??? My rewatch of s3 reminded me in a brief scene where Jackson is reminding Abby that’s she’s got “3 contraceptive implant removals waiting”. Obviously, because there was population control on the Ark, there had to be a way to enforce that. So, thank you continuity for finally coming through!  
> Also, this means that if any of the Spacekru girls were to have kids in those 6 years, it would be Emori or Echo (*glares at long-lasting Becho possibility*) since I would assume they don’t have a contraceptive implant, being Grounders. And whatever contraceptives they might have been using (*looking at you Memori*) would have probably run out over 6 years. Unless there’s a convenient stash of stuff on the Ring . . . *shrugs*  
> Anyways. Yes, I am a stickler for details so THANK YOU SHOW for answering that detail.]


	8. We Made It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A happier alternative to the s4 finale

They'd made it.

Bellamy stood by the observation window, looking down at the fiery Earth far below their safe haven on the Ring. After believing his days in space were over, here he was again - in space.

"They'll be okay," Clarke said, walking up.

"But we won't be sure about that for five years," he replied quietly.

His sister was down there, facing five lonely years without you. Yes, she had what remained of their people and the grounders with her, but she didn't have him. And he didn't have her. He had known this would be his reality when their only choice for survival was to go back into space, but he still didn't like it.

But Clarke was here. She was here, and they were safe. Together.

Bellamy looked at the girl who had come to mean so much to him, and Clarke smiled at her. Her features were still smudged with the worries of the past as well as the grit of Praimfaya, but he still found her absolutely beautiful.

"We made it," Clarke said, almost breathlessly. Like she couldn't believe it just yet.

He knew the feeling. After four months of racing the clock, fighting to survive, the fact that they'd _actually_ made it seemed unreal. Like any moment he would realize that this was all a dream, and the soul-numbing weight of their people's safety would come back. They'd been fighting to survive for so long that it felt wrong to relax; like the chance to just  _live_  was impossible.

Bellamy reached out and caught Clarke's hand in his own, her fingers weaving through his as she moved closer and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Together, they watched the world burn.

~~~

After their moment of quiet at the window, there was work to be done.

The air was running, but their water systems weren't up, nor was their algae farms. Clarke asked Raven and Monty if she could help, Bellamy a quiet presence at her side, but the fact was that only Raven and Monty had the knowledge capable of restoring the Ring.

"Thanks, but we got it for now," Raven had said, her words garbled around the wrench she held in her mouth as she focused on reinstalling the water filters.

"Right now we need to focus on getting things running before we start teaching you and the others how to keep them running," Monty had added helpfully where he stood next to Raven, holding a tangle of wires out of the mechanic's way. "Take a break, all right? You deserve it."

Clarke started to protest, but Bellamy put a hand on her shoulder. That was how it was now, wasn't it? Glances and small, unassuming touches in lieu of words? Oh, how things had changed from the days of the princess versus the rebel.

"Fine," she huffed, though not without some measure of relief.

As she and Bellamy wandered the Ring, the familiar metal walls dark with broken lighting and disuse, Clarke found herself facing a dilemma. Now what? Five years lay ahead of her, in which the only problem she faced was making it from here to then. Of course, the Ring had its maintenance to keep them busy and anything could happen with that.

But . . . they’d made it.

Clarke kept coming back to that fact, over and over, each time the relief of it hitting her anew.

Without realizing it, she’d ended up in the empty Sky Box, its cells no longer necessary. Bellamy inhaled quietly, and she knew that he was thinking of Octavia yet again as he saw the place she’d been locked up merely for existing.

“Never thought I’d see this place again,” he muttered.

Clarke nodded, her thoughts heavy with memories. This was where she had sat in almost silence for a year, grieving and frustrated and dreading the day when her life would be determined whether it would continue or end. Here she had dreamed of Earth, little imagining that by being here she would be one of the first of her people to go to it.

“Which one was yours?” Bellamy asked, his voice shaking Clarke out of her reverie.

“That one,” she pointed down the second row, the numbers on the door faded with time. “319. Even if you didn’t know the number, you could find it because I’m sure it’s the only one with drawings.”

“You drew on the walls?” Bellamy’s voice was both curious and impressed.

Clarke smiled, a quiet laugh huffing out of her throat. “Yeah, I did. It’s not like there was anything else for me to do.”

“I got to see this now.” He started down the hall, looking over his shoulder to see if she would follow.

She did.

 

~~~

 

Bellamy knew Clarke was an artist, but until now he hadn’t seen her handiwork. He stood in the middle of her old cell, looking around in awe at the drawings she had done during her incarceration. Even before she had been on the ground, she had managed to capture the wild beauty of Earth.

“Guess I’ll have to start filling the rest of the Ring during our time here,” Clarke remarked dryly, sitting down on the thin mattress of the cell’s narrow bunk.

Bellamy sat down next to her, their shoulders touching. Such casual intimacy was now second nature with them, and felt as natural as breathing.

“This time you’re not alone,” he said quietly, daring to look at her.

She was looking out the hexagonally sectioned window of the cell at the orange glow of the irradiated Earth, her features serene. Peace was a look Bellamy hadn’t seen on Clarke for months, and it was also a feeling he hadn’t felt himself in that length of time as well. But at his words, she looked at him, their gazes catching and holding.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered, emotions flitting by in fast-forward across her features.

He knew what she was thinking about – those last minutes on Earth. Until he had come running from the radio tower, mere seconds before she and the others would have launched without him, they didn’t know if they would ever see each other again. He had been ready to sacrifice himself so that she would live, and she had been ready to leave him behind to save the rest of their friends.

It had been their only choice; a terribly oxymoron.

But they’d made it. They were here.

Together.

A million, trillion thoughts clamored for attention in Bellamy’s mind, begging to voiced. There were so many things he could say, so many things he wanted to say. And he had the time to sort them out, but he didn’t want to. They’d almost lost each other . . . forever this time.

He didn’t want another chance to slip by again.

“Clarke . . .” he started, unconsciously shifting his position so that he faced her better.

She didn’t let him finish.

Clarke leaned forward, her lips meeting his in a fierce, desperate collision. Bellamy was surprised for just a moment before he returned her ferocity with his own, reaching up to cup her face in his hands.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she gasped between kisses, her breath sweet on his tongue. “I know, Bellamy. I know.”

 

~~~

 

Clarke loved him.

She had the chance to do so now, their survival no longer hanging in the balance, stealing her attention. She could let herself love and be loved, no barriers.

Her love for Bellamy was something she couldn’t explain, a force that had been building even before she’d realized it. It was something she had pushed aside again and again, telling herself that she didn’t have the time, they had to save their people first, and countless other excuses.

Oh, she’d loved Finn and Lexa, too. She had. But those loves were ones she had survived, while Clarke didn’t know what she would do if she lost Bellamy.

And now that they were safe, now that they could breathe, she was able to let that love come to the light. It was why he didn’t need to say anything, because she had known a long time ago that the depths of her love were mirrored in Bellamy.

Instead, she kissed him. She kissed him with the force of all the pent-up things she’d wanted to say but hadn’t. She kissed him because he was the one person who had never, ever betrayed her even when he had the chance and motivation to do so.

She kissed him because they were alone and alive and together.

 

_5 years later_

Bellamy had forgotten just how bright true sunlight could be, squinting his eyes against the warm glow as he stepped onto the ground from space for the second and last time of his life.

They’d made it.

“The air smells funny,” a small voice said next to him, little fingers gripping his tightly.

“That’s what air is supposed to smell like, princess,” he told his daughter, smiling down at her and her halo of blonde hair.

“Hey, I thought I was your princess,” Clarke said, raising an eyebrow at him as she walked down the dropship door towards them.

“You’re the first, yes,” Bellamy told her, greeting her with a soft kiss. “But we’ve got a new princess now, don’t we, Lexa?”

“Yep, I’m a princess,” Lexa said proudly, lifting her little chin.

“We’re home now,” Clarke said, bending down and tussling her daughter’s hair. “Why don’t you go exploring, okay?”

“Yes!” the little girl cried happily, letting go of Bellamy’s hand and racing off to inspect a purple-tinted group of ferns.

Clarke looped her arm around Bellamy’s waist as the two of them watched their daughter experience Earth for the first time, and once again his heart swelled with love. They had yet to find and reestablish contact with the rest of their people in the Second Dawn bunker, and a new world to learn, but they had made it.

They had survived.

Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a request from @LallaFN on Wattpad
> 
> "Bellarke survives on the Ring and have a daughter who Bellamy also calls Princess"


	9. Hold Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> s4e3 "The List" scene extension aka what we really wanted

A promise was a promise.

After the silent ride back from the useless bunker, Clarke had started the list Raven had kept pushing her to make. Bellamy had helped at first, especially in suggesting several reliable, multi-skilled guards he knew, but then his exhaustion had taken over. She had told him to get some rest while she finished up the list, and he’d agreed after a moment in which she silently begged him not to protest.

He hadn’t.

But he also hadn’t left her, stretching out on the couch in the chancellor’s office instead of going to his bunk like she had expected. His refusal to abandon her even in the midst of her horrible task touched Clarke, giving her the strength to continue with the last few names.

Until now, when two slots remained.

She glanced out at the window, at the oblivious people hard at work preparing the Ark for the five years of deadly radiation. They all thought they were going to live . . . because she had told them so. She’d lied to give them hope so that some of them would live.

When had she become such a cold, practical leader? Where was the girl who saved lives instead of taking them?

Clarke looked back at the list in front of her, biting her lip. Glancing over at Bellamy, her gaze lingering over his relaxed features, his chest rising gently in a deep sleep, she knew that his was the one life she couldn’t see lost.

She wouldn’t.

And so she wrote his name in the ninety-ninth slot.

Clarke knew she was supposed to write her own name next, in the final space. Her people needed her if they were going to survive, because she was the one who had brought them this far. But the weight what she had done to get them to here, the crushing horror of what she had done in making the list . . . it was too much.

A sob caught in her throat, hot tears blurring her the ink-marked page in front of her. How could she continue to live when she was condemning so many to death? This time, there was no excuse she could give to herself to try and lift the guilt. She knew this was the only way her people could survive, but so many would be lost to gain that future.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t do it. Clarke couldn’t give herself the future she had refused to so many.

But who would she give the last number to? Who would be the fortunate, necessary life who would live?

Movement came from the couch as Bellamy stood up, somehow waking at the precise moment when Clarke was at her weakest. She glanced away, unable to meet his gaze as he walked up and inspected the list.

“If I’m on that list,” he said quietly, almost forcefully, “you’re on that list.”

There was no hesitation, no doubt in his words. Clarke bit her lip at the unexpected amount of love she heard in his insistence, but the guilt of her actions was equally large.

She shook her head, gasping on a repressed sob as she said, “No . . . Bellamy, I _can’t_.”

She _deserved_ this. She had pulled the lever that killed Alie, taking away humanity’s chance for a soft, painless end to their mortal lives, and the chance for an eternal existence in the city of light. She was the one who had lied to them, giving them hope that would be destroyed when Praimfaya came.

“Write it down,” Bellamy told her. “Write it down, or I will.”

Clarke glanced at the list, at the curving letters of Bellamy’s name, her handwriting sealing his fate. She was comforted by the fact that he would live, but the thought of writing her own name down, of taking the spot of someone else’s chance for survival . . . it coiled hot and condemning in her stomach.

She’d already chosen so many; traded their lives for another. She couldn’t do the same for herself – she just couldn’t.

Bellamy remained true to his word, leaning forward and sliding the list away from her. He wrote her name below his in bold, blocky letters, his actions steady and unwavering. When he was finished, he capped the pen and set it carefully on the finished list before glancing at her.

“So, what now?” Clarke asked, biting back the urge to hide her face in her hands and let the sobs building her in her chest out. But that would be a selfish action, and they didn’t have the time for that.

Instead, she glanced up at Bellamy. Amid her roiling, unsteady emotions, Bellamy was her anchor. He stood next to her, his features sober as he looked down at the list.

“Now we put it away and hope we never have to use it.”

“You still have hope?” she asked in soft surprise.

Their world was ending. They had just written a list condemning four hundred of their people to death. The faint hope that Jaha had brought with the news of the bunker had been destroyed when they discovered that the cultist structure was useless.

Hope was the belief of ignorance.

“We still breathing?” Bellamy countered.

He smiled afterwards – a faint, mostly sad expression – but it was enough to rekindle Clarke’s hope. Bellamy was right. Even though they had two months left, that was still two months of time for the impossible to happen.

And then Bellamy rested a hand on Clarke’s shoulder, his fingers warm and reassuring. The contact was now a physical anchor for her, the gesture saying more than any words could in that moment. Clarke reached for his fingers with her own, resting her cheek against their joined hands as she sighed, some of her pent-up emotions escaping with her breath.

“Come here,” Bellamy said, guiding her to her feet.

Even before she was all the way out of the chair, he wrapped his arms around her, holding tight. Clarke exhaled shakily as she buried her face against his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut around the tears rolling hot down her cheeks once more.

“If you thought I’d let you leave me like that,” he said quietly, his voice warm against her ear, “then you don’t know me very well.”

The sound that Clarke made was part wry laughter, but mostly it was a gut-wrenching sob that made Bellamy hold her even tighter. This time, she didn’t try to keep herself from crying. She didn’t think she could live with the emotions she’d kept shoving down, down, down, swirling behind the fragile cage of her ribs.

“We’ve never stopped fighting for our lives,” she choked out, tasting salt on her lips. “Every day, it seems there’s something new that wants to kill us, and I’m just . . . I’m just so _tired_ , Bellamy! I don’t know how long I can do this, how many more deaths I can let happen.”

“I know,” he murmured, his own voice tight and strangled. He exhaled heavily as he shifted his hold on her, resting his head on her shoulder and further wrapping her in his arms. “Trust me, Clarke – I _know_.”

Clarke nodded, her jaw brushing against the material of his shirt, damp where her tears had been soaked up by the brown fabric. Bellamy’s heartbeat thudded in her ear, and she tried to match her own heart to his.

“Two months,” she whispered a few minutes later, once her tears had ended.

“You can face that again in the morning,” Bellamy said, pulling far enough way so he could look her in the eye. The smile he offered her now was a little brighter, a little softer. “You can’t save anyone if you’re falling over from exhaustion.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Clarke muttered, but she gave him a faint smile in return.

Bellamy stepped away, and instantly Clarke wanted the reassuring warmth of his arms around her again. She wanted to escape her worries and their dark future for a few hours, and the fact that she wanted Bellamy for that surprised her.

But, she’d been selfish enough already.

After Bellamy left, she turned back to the desk and tore the list out of the notepad, folding it in half and tucking it away in a drawer. She wanted Bellamy’s hope to come through, that they’d never have to use it. But the ground had never been very kind to them, and the memory of the problems of their pasts were what gave her cause to worry about the future.

Whatever came, at least she had Bellamy. He would be there by her side, to write her name for her and hold her together when she fell apart. And that was something Clarke could truly hope in, the steady love she felt for him the one bright thing in the dark of their lives.


	10. Unity Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in titled episode and basically just humorous fluff

Clarke Griffin was happily drunk.

It hadn’t been her intent, but the numbing warmth buzzing through her veins and chasing her worries away was something she didn’t want to leave. Not yet. She could pretend the threat of grounders, winter, and a million other dangers didn’t exist for this one night.

The rest of the camp had the same thoughts, except for the guards Bellamy had pulled from the festivities and told to stay on watch in case the grounders decided tonight would be the one to retaliate . . .

Ugh, no. Clarke wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that! She waved the annoying thoughts away with a laugh and another sip of Monty’s throat-burning moonshine.

“Hey.” Finn came up to her where she sat in one of the dropship seats by the fire, the orange flames glinting off the metal cup in her hands. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Clarke snorted derisively, the alcohol pulsing in her veins lowering the walls she normally kept up so carefully. Finn still made no effort against the feelings he had for her, even though his girlfriend had risked everything to come to the ground for him. Spacewalker might have had Clarke’s heart once, but he didn’t own it anymore.

No one did.

“Does Raven know you’re here?” she asked him, taking another swallow of the moonshine in her cup.

Finn looked away, his guilt glaringly obvious . . . or maybe that was because Clarke could see right through him.

“I think we should talk about things,” he said, unable to meet her gaze. He threw a random stick into the fire and then shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Clarke said bluntly. “You should have told me about Raven, but you didn’t. You should have told her about me, but you didn’t – I did. We’re done, Finn.”

“What if I don’t want that?” he asked, this time looking at her with those soft brown eyes that she had once found irresistible. Now his pleading gaze only sickened her, because she had fallen for it and then she’d been burned.

“I don’t,” she said, lurching to her feet. She leaned forward and jabbed him with the rim of her cup, moonshine sloshing over the edge and onto his jacket. “I don’t want you anymore, Finn. Okay? And the only one to blame for that is you. Raven can forgive you, but don’t expect the same from me.”

And with that, Clarke stomped off.

The dark shadows outside the reach of firelight swallowed her up as she drained the last of her moonshine and idly tossed the empty cup away. She really didn’t care if she’d hurt Finn’s feelings with what she’d said. He deserved it, since he’d broken the heart she’d trusted him with.

Love was stupid and had brought her nothing but grief. She’d lost her dad. Her mother had betrayed her. And now the one person she thought she’d found new hope for love in had also betrayed her.

Suddenly, Clarke just wanted to sleep. She wanted the black of drunken oblivion, and she figured her head was spinning enough that she’d be able to find that. The sound of the still-celebrating camp was a dull, annoying roar in the back of her head that was threatening to become a headache. It probably would, and she’d probably regret her actions of this night in the morning, but like all drunks, she didn’t care.

But when Clarke stumbled through the canvas entrance to her tent, she was surprised to see Bellamy. She squinted blearily at him, her thoughts muddled with alcohol.

“Having fun yet, princess?” Bellamy asked with a teasing smile as he arched an eyebrow at her.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded, glaring at him. It was obvious that he thought her question was ridiculous, as his smile grew as he looked at her. “What?”

“I think you took my advice a little too far,” he replied with a chuckle, shaking his head. He stood up from the piled furs of the bed, folding his arms as he looked down at her. “You got the wrong tent . . . unless you wanted to pay me a visit.”

Oh. _Oh_. This wasn’t her tent . . .

“Relax, princess,” Bellamy said, patting her on the shoulder. “I’m not hurt. You want some help getting to your tent?”

Clarke swatted his hand away with a little grumble of annoyance, shaking her head.

“No, I got it,” she said.

She went to take a step back, but her foot caught on something and she fell off balance with a completely undignified squeak. Bellamy moved to catch her, but he was a little too late, and Clarke fell in an awkward heap on the end of his bed.

“Oh, princess,” Bellamy laughed softly, crouching down next to her. His hand came onto her shoulder again, oddly gentle, and Clarke didn’t have it in her to shake him away this time. “You’re a mess right now, you know that?”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, but she wasn’t sure if that came out right.

“Come on,” Bellamy said, lifting her up by the waist. Her legs were wobbly and her head spun, making her feel like she was still sideways instead of standing, but he supported her weight easily. “Let’s get you back where you belong.”

“No,” Clarke gained a moment of awareness, pushing him away. He stepped back, holding his hands up in surrender, that teasing smile fixed on his features. “No, I don’t . . . I want . . .”

In the dark warmth of his tent, the sounds of the camp seemed far away. Firelight and shadows danced across the canvas material of the tent walls, moving in sporadic strips of light across Bellamy’s features.

And suddenly Clarke knew exactly what she wanted.

She stepped forward, her gaze darting towards Bellamy’s lips–

–and then Raven stuck her head into the tent, oblivious to the glare Clarke tossed her way.

But she should have been relieved that her stupid decision to sleep with Bellamy had been thwarted, right?

“My boyfriend’s being an idiot,” Raven said.

Bellamy sighed, shaking his head. “Of course he is.”

“What’s going on?” Clarke asked, blinking against the blurry hazy of her alcohol-muddled thoughts.

“He set up a meeting with the grounders, that’s what’s going on,” Raven said. “Come on. Even if he is an idiot, I’m not going to let him just walk into danger. You with me?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy said, reaching for his jacket and tugging it on. “Give us a sec.”

When Raven left, Bellamy suddenly smirked at Clarke, even though his gaze had gone distant, focused on this newest trouble of their little group.

“I know exactly what you were going to do, princess,” he drawled, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. “And if Spacewalker doesn’t kill us with his peace talks, I’m willing to see where you wanted to go with that kiss.”

“I wasn’t going to kiss you,” Clarke spluttered.

Bellamy laughed, leaving the tent. “Of course you weren’t.”

He knew she was lying, and as she followed him into the night, Clarke didn’t bother to further defend herself.

Maybe she would revisit this tent again . . .


	11. May We Meet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super short drabble WITH HORRIBLE, ANGST-RIDDEN FEELS (why do I do this to myself???) in which Clarke purposely stays behind to manually set the radio tower because, as a Nightblood, she has the best chance of survival.

Silence fell after Raven's terrible announcement. Gazes around the room, tense and sober. The clock was ticking, and if this was the only choice - one of them sacrificing themselves so the others would live - then who would it be?

"I'll do it."

Bellamy's heart sank as he looked at Clarke, her pale features set with her decision.

"No," he said instinctively, shaking his head. "No, Clarke. I won't let you-"

"I'm the only Nightblood here," she said quickly, darting a glance at Raven for support. "If I stay in the bunker, the tests Raven and my mom ran show that I could survive the radiation levels in two years." She turned to the dark-haired mechanic. "There's enough food for that, right?"

Raven nodded slowly, her arms folded tightly across her chest. "Yeah, if you ration carefully. There's a hydro-generator built into the lab, so you won't have to worry about water . . . and you can also grow food if something happens that means you have to stay inside longer."

"Okay," Clarke said, smiling bravely. "So it's settled."

"Like hell it is!" Bellamy burst out.

"All right, people," Raven raised her voice, moving towards the rest of their small group. "We've got one hour left until the death wave hits this place. That means we've got three hours of work to fit into sixty minutes, so let's get moving."

Soon, Clarke and Bellamy were alone. Despair ran thick and cold in his veins as he faced Clarke, her gaze carefully avoiding his.

"It's the only way," she said quietly.

"There has to be another way," he managed, his throat tightening. "Clarke, I can't . . . " - he clenched his jaw against the tears burning in his eyes - "I  _can't_  do this without you. Not again."

"You'll be okay," she murmured, this time her gaze lifting to his. He saw the grief inside of him mirrored in her blue eyes, and he realized that this was hurting her as much as him. "I have to do this, Bell - you know that."

He couldn't disagree, because she was right. Raven had run all the diagnostics, and this was their only option for survival. Clarke was the only one with a high chance of survival on the ground, whereas if anyone else stayed, they'd die.

"Hey," Clarke said, stepping forward and wiping away one of the tears that had slipped out of his eye. Her thumb was soft against his cheek. "This isn't the end. We'll see each other again."

"Clarke . . . "

Bellamy had so many things he wanted to say piling up in his throat, expanding in his chest and beating against the oppressive cage of his ribs. He'd almost said how he felt so many times, and each time something had happened to stop him. And so now, when they faced five years apart, he couldn't let another moment slip by.

But somehow the words just wouldn't come. It was so simple, wasn't it? Three little words that pulsed sure and steady in his heart, echoing inside his mind as he looked at Clarke, as if he could memorize her features forever he just looked long and hard enough.

And so he kissed her instead, his palms cupping her jaw in a sudden movement and his lips pressing hard against hers. It was a kiss full of every desperate moment he'd thought he'd lost her, and full of the love that sounded with every measure of his heartbeat. It was a goodbye and the hope of a hello one day in the uncertain future.

Bellamy wasn't sure how long they stood there, clinging to each other, Clarke's breath in his lungs. She kissed him back just as fiercely, and when they finally pulled away, her cheeks were shiny with tears.

Later, just before he stepped into the rocket, the glass of his hazmat helmet a barrier between them, Clarke pulled him against her in one final embrace. He tipped the edge of the helmet against her forehead, her breath gusting against the glass.

Leaving her behind felt wrong, even when he knew that this was not the end. They would see each other again. He refused to believe in a future without Clarke.

"In peace, may you leave the shore," she whispered. "In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until your final journey to the ground."

"May we meet again," Bellamy finished.

And when Clarke watched the rocket climb into the orange skies until the screen feed cut out, she repeated their shared hope.

"May we meet again."


	12. Dark Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post s1e8.  
> Tbh I don't even know what this is. I just started writing with an idea that I wanted something super fluffy and slightly awkward between Bellarke in a quiet moment after 'Day Trip', and then this happened.

Clarke was hiding.

It had been another long day on the ground, gathering supplies for the dreaded winter months. Worry clouded her mind like a blanket, stifling and tangling around her thoughts. And so, in the dimming crawl of darkness, she slipped away.

Not too far, because to travel alone was one step shy of absolute suicide. No. She was still within the campsite wall, but tucked in a little hollow near the far side, shadowed by the back of the dropship.

“There you are, princess.”

Clarke shut her eyes and tried to gather some semblance of decorum about her as Bellamy’s voice infiltrated her brief moment of solitude. Wasn’t her position obvious about the fact that she just wanted to be left alone right now?

“What is it?” she replied a moment later, glaring through the blurry shadows of the fast-approaching night.

“Finn’s wondering where you are.” Bellamy’s following shrug showed more than his dry tone exactly how he felt about Spacewalker. “He didn’t see you around the fire with everyone for dinner, and he got worried. But since he’s just now up and about after almost dying, and I didn’t want to deal with a pissed-off Raven–”

“I got it,” Clarke sighed, reaching up to try and rub the frustration out of her head with the back of her hand . . . and probably smudging her features with dirt, based on the gritty feel. That, or she was just filthy because finding time for such mundane tasks like bathing in the middle of trying to stay alive in world that seemed to be doing its utmost to prevent such a thing.

As she sat there for a moment, mulling over whether to sneak a trip to the river tomorrow or try and nick some water from the camp reserves for a quick wash, Clarke realized that Bellamy was still standing over her. Huh. She would have expected him to leave once he’d ascertained her location.

But then, the last few days, Bellamy had changed from the brash, rebel leader into someone who Clarke found herself beginning to trust. He was dependable, and in shaky times like these, she needed someone like that by her side.

Which was even more proof why Finn wasn’t able to keep her heart like he wanted . . . no. She wasn’t thinking about that – again. She’d wasted enough time on Spacewalker.

“I can see if there’s any food left from dinner,” Bellamy said, his tone now shifted from one bored, mild annoyance into what seemed like quiet awkwardness. But Bellamy Blake didn’t do awkward . . . did he? “Uh, since you obviously want to be, ah, antisocial right now.”

“Thanks for noticing,” Clarke drawled, earning a snort of laughter from Bellamy.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and then strode back to the faint, flickering glow of firelight from the front of the dropship.

 ~

When he came back, Bellamy had a stick of roasted meat in one hand, and a water cup in the other. Clarke smiled in the darkness at his thoughtfulness, and not for the first time wondered what exactly had happened on the Ark to make him hide this, well, _sweet_ side. She knew it was something to do with his sister, Octavia, but The Girl Under The Floor was as much a mystery as her brother.

After he handed her the food, Bellamy lowered himself to sit opposite of her, folding his long legs a little clumsily, and adjusting the strap of the rifle slung over his back so the gun now rested in his lap, able to be brought to the ready at a moment’s notice. Clarke eyed him as she took a bite of the warm, tender meat. If he was going to be watching her eat the entire time, that was going to be . . . interesting.

“Ever heard about Sisyphus?” he asked her a few minutes later, the odd name rolling with ease off his tongue. “Because lately I’ve come to really understand that guy, maybe a little too well.”

“I majored in medicine,” Clarke stated with an apologetic shrug. “I think . . .” – she paused for a moment, the name ‘Wells’ catching in her throat before she was able to say it – “Wells told me about him, once. Maybe.” She shrugged again. “A lot of things from the Ark are blurry for me lately, especially little details like those random conversations I’d have with someone. Eh, more like only with Wells, or my parents.”

“And here I had you pegged as one of the popular girls on the Ark,” Bellamy said, the teasing lilt to his words catching Clarke off guard.

She understood a Bellamy who was stubborn, infuriating, contradictory, upset, and on the trip they’d made where they’d found the guns, despairing . . . but joking? It felt uncharacteristic of him. But maybe the things she knew best about him weren’t real, and the thoughtful, quiet humored Bellamy in front of her was the real one.

“Oh, no, not at all,” she said with a wry, quiet laugh. “I was the quiet, career-focused girl who was best friends with the Chancellor’s son, but only because I’d known him my entire life.”

“I was supposed to be a Guard,” Bellamy said.

“I thought you were?”

He shook his head. “No, but I almost was. Only had six months of training left before . . .” – he took a long breath – “I’m the reason O got locked up.”

Clarke didn’t think, she only reacted.

The broken emotions she heard in Bellamy’s voice tugged on her heartstrings, and she reached her free hand out, her searching touch finding the padded material of his jacket, a little below his shoulder. She instinctively tightened her grip for a moment of comfort, before pulling away in awkward realization.

So, that happened. If it had been anyone but Bellamy, the closed-off, young man in their group of teenagers, she wouldn’t have thought anything of the touch. But that wasn’t the case.

“You’re too nice for the ground, Clarke,” Bellamy said softly after a too-long moment of silence had passed.

Clarke snorted in denial. No one had the luxury of innocence on the ground, least of all her. So far, she’d killed one and let another be tortured, even though there had be no other choice in either situation. But the guilt still lay thick and heavy on her soul, eating away at her sense of morality.

If the girl she’d been on the Ark could see who she was now, that girl would probably run in terror.

“I mean it,” Bellamy said, and this time he was the one who reached out.

His fingers tangled awkwardly in hers, feeling by touch instead of sight. The darkness around them made the small action seem intimate, and Clarke’s heartbeat instinctively quickened. Oh, God! Bellamy could probably feel her pulse in her wrist, where she felt a part of his palm pressing.

“Well, at least someone besides Finn believes in me now,” she said in an attempt to lighten the quickly heating mood.

“I actually believed in you from day one, but was too damn prideful to admit it, especially to myself,” Bellamy said, his fingers tightening fractionally around hers.

~

 They sat like that for a little while longer, speaking infrequently, their hands still entwined. And when they eventually parted ways, Clarke realized that her heart no longer ached with the hurt from Spacewalker, but now there was a new, growing kind of ache inside it. A longing for the one who believed in her.


	13. Ashes To Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another alternative end to the s4 finale

_3 minutes before_

Clarke wasn’t back.

 _Yet_ , Bellamy kept telling himself. She wasn’t back _yet_. Any moment she would come running into the lab and he could let go of the panic that clawed sharp, icy fingers along the walls of his heart.

“Bellamy . . .”

Raven’s voice mirrored Bellamy’s roiling emotions. And he knew what she was going to tell him – the nail sealing the coffin over Clarke’s fate.

“Bellamy, we have to go,” Raven continued, tugging on the sleeve of his radiation suit. “We’ve got less than two minutes until the wave hits us. She . . .” – the pause was heavy, full of things he didn’t want to think about – “she’s not coming back in time.”

Bellamy nodded slowly, his movement like that of a puppet; like someone else was directing his movements, while he was only in control of his thoughts and feelings.

He wanted to stop time. He wanted to hold the oncoming storm of Praimfaya at bay so that Clarke would be safe. He’d wait until he saw her petite, orange-clad figure return, and then they could go.

But time kept on ticking inexorably, taking them one second closer to a fiery death. The building shook with the muted roar of the irradiated weather outside, and he should have climbed into the waiting rocket behind him. He should have followed Clarke’s wishes and done the impossible – face a future without her.

Bellamy shook his head as he turned to Raven, his decision made.

“I’m not letting her die alone,” he said quietly, his voice oddly serene. “I won’t leave her. I . . . I can’t.”

“No,” Raven said, almost as soon as he started talking. Her voice cracked on the rounded sound of the word, tears glistening in her eyes. “No. Don’t you dare, Bellamy Bla–”

He stole another moment of precious time as he met her despairing gaze, his hands coming up to grip her shoulders. And in that moment, Bellamy tried to tell her in his eyes what he didn’t have the time or the right words to say. How much he cared for Clarke and couldn’t let her sacrifice alone, just like he hadn’t let her take the weight of their Mount Weather actions and so many other circumstances.

“Hey, are we going or not?” Murphy’s frantic question stirred Raven to action, and she stepped away from Bellamy. “Clock keeps moving, and so should we if we don’t want to die here.”

Bellamy glanced to his left, seeing the last few seconds flash by on Clarke’s return deadline. When he looked back at Raven, she stood in the doorway of the rocket, her spacesuit helmet on and her features blurred behind the dark glass of it. A moment later, she disappeared into the rocket, and Murphy closed the door, sealing Bellamy’s fate alongside that of Clarke’s.

As the rocket roared to life, Bellamy turned and ran out of the lab and into the fury of Praimfaya.

 

 

_3 minutes after_

Clarke knew her life was staggering to an end.

Her skin burned, the radiation levels in the air searing past the now-flimsy protection of her suit. Acrid smoke and random debris filled the orange-choked air, and the scorching gusts of wind battered her dying body. Her vision swam and darkened, and yet, by some miracle, she managed to keep walking.

But her frantic climb to the crooked satellite dish atop the tall, shaking tower was successful. She’d realigned the position, right before she saw the ascent of the rocket. No matter what happened to her, Bellamy and her friends were safe.

Just as Clarke staggered into view of the lab outbuildings, the scream of the oncoming deathwave behind her, she saw a figure coming towards her. So, this was it – her final moments drifting away into hallucinations to ease the sting of death.

She sank to her knees, her energy slipping away under the inevitable future that awaited her. Her pain began to ebb, agony morphing into apathetic numbness, and the dark lurking at the edge of her vision swam forward and began to drown her.

The last thing Clarke saw was the hazy figure right in front of her.

 

<><><> 

 

Clarke gained consciousness violently, coughing blood onto the pale floor of the lab.

Her fingers clawed uncontrollably at the slick surface, scraping through the thin puddle of black that she exhaled with every scraping breath. Her stomach contracted again and again, her nausea was a faint sensation through the rest of her agony. Her skin felt like it was being split and torn in every possible molecule as the radiation bubbled across her body.

But she was still alive.

Clarke didn’t remember much after climbing down from the tower, except that the deathwave had been right behind her. And . . . a figure. That memory powered through the pain and demanded her attention, screaming for her to figure out the importance it held.

She didn’t understand until she turned her head and saw an orange-covered arm extended towards her, gloved fingers loose and open. Her gaze traveled slowly up the limb, along the familiar width of the shoulders, and then stopped with horror on the pale face behind the cracked glass of the helmet.

“ . . . _no._ ”

Her voice was a groaning croak, but her anguish surged beyond that one, painful word.

No. No, no, no . . . NO! No, Bellamy was supposed to be in the rocket, safe from the deadly radiation that was now killing them both. She’d _needed_ him to be alive, his survival the one thing that had driven her through the long climb up the tower.

Clarke pulled herself inch by painful inch across the few feet of floor to Bellamy’s still form, her bloody vomit smearing across the front of her radiation suit. She clawed at his helmet release, needed to hear his voice one last time. Her blistered fingers tore and bled across the metal and glass as she finally released the catch and tugged the helmet off and away, the rounded object clattering into the dim distance.

“Bellamy?” she said, her voice catching on the sore in her throat. His radiation-burnt skin felt distant under her touch as she cupped his face in her hands, rolling his head from side to side in an attempt to wake him. “ _Why_? You were supposed to live, Bellamy. You were supposed to li–”

Another burst of nausea rolled through her, and Clarke sobbed as she heaved and spat to the side of Bellamy’s body. When she was able to look at him again, this time she saw the pulse throbbing faintly in the side of his neck. Joy stirred weakly to life in her chest, though it was tempered by the fact that she knew her hope was fading with every passing moment.

There was a roaring in her ears that she now recognized as the deathwave above them . . . or maybe that was the poisoned blood pulsing through her veins . . .

Blood!

Maybe, just maybe, her Nightblood was saving her. And if Bellamy was going to live, he had to be a Nightblood, too.

“We’re still breathing,” Clarke told him, her gaze sweeping frantically around the flickering light of the lab. Everything she needed was here, but she had to hurry. “We’re still breathing, which means there’s still hope.”

 

 

_1 month after_

Bellamy opened his eyes onto a white ceiling.

His body felt stiff and worn, like he’d been pulled apart and put back together a million times. His muscles burned and his bones ached, weariness weighing his waking actions down . . . but he was alive.

He sat up slowly, still feeling the lingering burn of radiation in his stomach and pulling at his healing skin. He and Clarke had thrown up for a week, their shared Nightblood barely keeping them alive through the throes of radiation sickness, but they’d made it.

They were both alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Run To You by Lea Michele while I wrote this and a) UGH HER VOICE and b) UGH BELLARKE FEELS


	14. What We Did

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look. Another alternate s2e16 one shot.

For one moment, Clarke almost left.

She stood before the gates of the camp, the torment of her actions warring with her loyalty to her people. She knew that she was supposed to follow the line of her rescued friends, but she wanted to run. If she didn’t go in, she didn’t have to face what she’d done.

She’d murdered _three hundred_ people – and only a fraction of them were guilty.

“I think we deserve a drink.”

Bellamy’s voice pulled her from the battle inside her mind, and Clarke felt herself drawn to his presence as he came to stand next to her. So far, he was the only one who had stayed by her side through the terrible choice she’d made, in the aftermath, during the long walk back from Mount Weather . . . and now.

She didn’t deserve him.

“I . . .” Clarke took a breath around the panic sitting viscous in her throat. “I don’t think I can go in there.”

“Hey.” Bellamy’s voice was low, offering her comfort – yet another thing she didn’t deserve. “We can get through this.”

“Can we?” she asked, her voice catching on her guilt.

Bellamy turned to her and Clarke dared to meet his gaze. Tears glimmered in the depths of his eyes, but his expression was steadfast as he said, “Clarke, if you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven, okay?” He moved as if to step closer, but caught himself. “Please . . . come inside.”

“You don’t understand!” This time Clarke couldn’t fight the sob that clawed its way around her words. “Seeing their faces every day is just going to remind me of what I did to get them here, and–”

“What _we_ did,” Bellamy corrected firmly, even though his voice shook. “We did what we had to, you know that. And if you think tha–”

He stopped short, his features twisting in a mixture of emotion that mirrored the ones swirling inside Clarke. A moment later he reached out and caught her hand in his, glancing back up at her.

“Together,” he murmured. “I couldn’t let you make that decision in the mountain alone, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you deal with the consequences alone, either.”

He let go of her hand then, and Clarke wanted to reach out and keep that connection between them. But his presence at her side was enough, and together they walked into camp.

 

<><><> 

 

As the sky darkened and the camp eventually quieted, Clarke sat in the mess hall. Her fingers were wrapped around the same drink Bellamy had poured her hours earlier, and she’d barely sipped it. She felt numb and distant; set apart from the world around her.

People moved around her, their voices a muted roar in her ears. She didn’t try to see the looks they gave her – awe mingled with horror – but it was as if that was the only thing she saw. Like her guilt was inescapable and made sure that she knew it.

And every time she closed her eyes to try and hide from the faces around her, she saw the silent, blistered faces of the mountain men.

“You should get some sleep,” Bellamy said, breaking the silence that had stretched between them.

Clarke shook her head dully, taking another sip of the warm, throat-searing liquor inside her cup. If she slept, she wouldn’t be able to run from the nightmares that already lurked dark in the corners of her mind.

And so they stayed, until they were the last.

Bellamy was slumped in his chair, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. Clarke felt the same, bone-deep weariness calling her to relax and drift away, but still she sat tight on her seat . . . until she wasn’t.

She sat up with a gasp, catching herself at the last second before falling to the ground.

“Okay,” Bellamy said, getting stiffly to his feet. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, easing her off the chair. “Come on, princess.”

Clarke tried to protest, but she was too tired to transfer the words to her tongue. And so, she let him guide her out of the mess hall and into the cool air of the night. Her feet felt heavy and unwieldy, but Bellamy’s arm around her shoulders kept her from falling.

Once they ducked through the flap of her tent and Clarke sat down on her makeshift bed, she couldn’t keep her eyes open for more than long moments. And since blissful darkness met her mind’s eyes, she felt safe enough to rest. Or maybe that was because she knew Bellamy was here and she remembered in a moment of clarity his promise to never let her face the guilt they shared alone.

She heard him begin to move away, and panic stirred to lazy life inside her chest.

“No, please. Don’t.” Her voice sounded drunken and slow, even though it was exhaustion that slurred her words, not alcohol. “Don’t go. I . . .”

_I need you, but I don’t know how to say it the right way._

But she should have known that Bellamy didn’t need explanations from her. Not about this.

He stayed, stretching out next to her on the thin mattress. The heat of his presence settled Clarke’s panic, and she moved instinctively closer until her cheek found his shoulder.

And then she slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Request from my darling Harbean [her s4 one shot is AMAZING https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409316 ]!
> 
> "Instead of leaving, Clarke stays"


	15. Undeniable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> s5 Bellarke feels - super angsty, kind of fluffy, and a bit steamy near the end

Sometimes Bellamy thought he was dreaming.

In his life, struggle was a constant. Happiness was a treasured gift, rarely granted to anyone. It was the sensation of fools. And, if he happened upon it, he never had it long before something snatched it back, leaving him once more in the familiar bleakness of survival.

Still, when he had learned that Clarke was alive, Bellamy had felt . . . happy. Which made him believe he was dreaming, as that was were he knew the only true happiness to live as a fleeting façade. Even when Clarke would smile at him from across their forest campsite, Bellamy wondered when the moment would hit that he would wake up onto the dark metal of the Ring, cold with grief and empty with loss.

It had been three days since they’d landed in the forgiving cushion of the ocean, dragging themselves to solid ground. Two days since Bellamy had felt his heart restored to life at the sound of his name in _her_ voice. Two days since he’d run, staggering and slipping and stunned, into Clarke’s arms, gasping in the reality of her continued existence.

He left camp, missing Clarke’s presence. He found her on the beach a few minutes away from, her smudged form sitting just out of reach from the waves. She was barefoot, her boots sitting discarded several feet away, toes stretched towards the stretching tide.

She tilted her head in his direction when he sat next to her, leaning back on his palms. The damp coarseness of sand was both rough and soft under his skin, and he curled his fingers into it, holding onto the Earth. A faint breeze gusted over them, smelling of salt and wet and the burnt metal tang of radiation. It ruffled invisible hands through his hair and tossed Clarke’s pale locks across her face like a flimsy mask, hiding her features.

Bellamy lifted a sand-crusted hand and reached out to her without thinking, brushing the strands away from her eyes. Clarke looked at him, quiet and wondering in the darkness, silver-brushed gaze shining in the watery moonlight.

They could talk, he supposed, but they’d already done what was necessary of that the first night, all of them gathered around the fire. And then later, on the second night he and Clarke had drifted towards each other and sat divided by the flickering orange flames between them, renewing the bond they’d shared years ago in quiet, careful sentences.

But things were different now. Six years yawned between them, a seemingly unbridgeable span. He had jumped across and she had waited on the other side, but the leap still stayed, heavy and unchangeable.

And yet, no matter the differences, he was still drawn to her like two magnets doomed to collide for eternity, helpless to turn and push each other away. But even if they were forced apart again by the cruel fates, Bellamy knew he would always, always drift back to her.

Being who they were, knowing what they did about each other, words were not needed. Clarke looked at Bellamy, and he looked at her, and that was enough. It was.

And yet.

And yet . . .

And yet she leaned close, expression shifting into focus right before it blurred again when Bellamy closed his eyes, ready for whatever Clarke might do or say. If he simply heard the reassuring sound of her breath, that was enough.

“I missed you, Bellamy,” Clarke murmured.

He opened his eyes at those words, the trembling confession she had not voiced no matter how obvious it had been for all of them. He still missed his sister and the rest of their people they’d left behind in the bunker, but that was a different loss compared to the one he had borne when he believed Clarke dead.

She reached up, resting her cool hands on the back of his neck, fingertips brushing against the edge of his hairline. He tipped his head against hers, leaning against her, breathing the truth of her life in with a long, shuddering gasp.

Every time he thought he was adjusted to the reality that she was _here_ , Clarke was alive, it came slamming into him like it was the first time all over again. Oh, had he missed her!

“I missed you too, princess,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “So, _so_ damn much.”

He felt like crying, like breaking down into nothing but relief for Clarke to scoop back into the shape of him, holding him together to prove again and again that she was here. That he wasn’t dreaming, that it was really her touch anchoring him into reality, keeping him sane and driving him crazy at the same time.

“Shhh,” Clarke said, pulling him against her, her fingers sliding up into his hair. “Shhh, it’s okay. I’m here, Bellamy. I’m here.”

So, he was crying. Deep, painful sobs clawed almost silently through him, voiced only when he gasped for breath. He shook and felt shattered, but it _was_ okay because Clarke was there reminding him that it was. Everything would be fine, it would, and it was all because she was here.

She was here.

Bellamy took in a steadying breath, lifting his head from Clarke’s shoulder. She smiled crookedly at him in the dark, her eyes a fixed point in the night.

He had compared the two of them to magnets, hadn’t he? Well, it was true. For she was the north on his compass, the needle of his mind always spinning back to her. She had sometimes wavered, his course wobbling because they had not found a moment of quiet to steady themselves, but that had not changed their position to each other.

“We’re okay,” Clarke told him, her voice shaky with the same relief that still coursed so fiercely through his veins. Her palms framed his face, cool and grounding him in this moment, her thumbs brushing softly against his features. “We’re okay now.”

He nodded his agreement, but perhaps she seemed to take the movement as a different kind? Or had she already been leaning in and he’d simply shifted forward enough to close the gap?

Bellamy didn’t know.

All he did know was the spanning moment before the kiss, when their eyes met in wonderment and readiness. Clarke looked so sure, so beautiful, and he’d wanted to capture that expression. But then their lips met, and the moment was lost as they were swept up into another.

As the waves crashed against the shore beside them, Bellamy and Clarke crashed against each other. He wrapped her up in his arms, falling back as she fell against him, mouth hot against his. He landed on the sand, seeing and feeling nothing but Clarke, her weight a definitive desire above him.

They moved like the ocean, ebbing away only to inevitably drift back to each other, again and again. And, like the tides, this seemed an undeniable fact of nature; like there was no turning away or disproving the inevitable reality that was this moment.

Sand crusted Bellamy’s skin as Clarke pulled his shirt over his head, her fingers both gentle and demanding at the same time, skating up the sensitive structure of his ribs. Cool air gusted against his back as he surged up against her, tasting the shadowy space of her neck, drawing forth little sounds from her throat that were almost buried by the sound of the waves.

And then he was grounded against the beach once more, Clarke’s weight settling and shifting on top of him. The movement of her hips mimicked the motion of the tide and were almost in sync with the rhythmic ripple of the waves. Bellamy groaned at the sensation, tipping his head back and baring his throat to the night . . . but Clarke claimed it first. Her teeth grazed feather-soft over his pulse for one long, shuddering moment before she trailed up to the small spot of skin just behind his ear.

“Is this okay?” she asked.

Bellamy laughed at the question, though not in a humorous way. Well, not completely.

Was this okay? This was beyond okay. This was everything he had dreamed of and more, simply because he hadn’t let himself dream about such things with Clarke. What they had, what they were, it was both exactly like this—melding so easily together—and more. They walked higher paths than that of mere attraction.

They were yin and yang—always in opposition yet always moving in perfect, absolute balance.

But he understood why Clarke asked, and her care about such things had Bellamy falling a little more in love with her.

“Yeah,” he managed, pulling back long enough to gasp the consenting words, “it’s fine, Clarke.”

“Mmm,” she said, kissing that delicate spot behind his ear again and making him shiver. “Good.”

They really didn’t stop to think beyond consent. Location was a trivial concern, as the beach was isolated enough from the camp . . . and there weren’t very many people to worry about seeing them, either. Or so Bellamy thought, in the brief moment of hazy wonderings as he shifted, rolling so that he was the one to press Clarke in the sand with kisses and trailing touches along the smooth curves of her body.

And then he was lost in Clarke, completely and utterly lost. He felt the cool ocean breeze over his skin and the rough grit of sand under his palms as if from far away, but Clarke was so, so close. She was warm against him where she lay on their discarded clothes, the sound of the ocean a muted roar wrapping them up in their breathless moment of intimacy.

Afterwards, they curled against each other, pulling Bellamy’s jacket over their hips and huddling their shoulders under Clarke’s smaller jacket. Her head rested on his shoulder, and his arm lay across the dip of her waist. Their noses brushed as they looked at each other, words once again an optional form of communication . . . even in the darkness.

Bellamy thought about saying the three definitive words to Clarke, but then wondered if those three words were too small for how much he felt about her. And since there was hesitation, since she was smiling at him, her expression caught in sporadic bursts of moonlight, he didn’t think it very necessary.

And neither did she, remaining silent as well.

But in the morning, when Bellamy woke up to see the gold of the sunrise glinting off of Clarke’s skin and burnishing the strands of her hair, the words just slipped out. They came right as she opened her eyes and met his wondering gaze.

“I love you,” Bellamy murmured.

She huffed a quiet laugh at the confession, blinking sleep away. Pale pink crept across the warming gold of her features.

“I love you,” she replied. So easily, so calmly, so confidentially. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to tell you. I thought I’d lost my chance, all the chances we had that we’d never taken.”

“I know,” he said, pulling her even closer against him.

He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, letting himself think about their tangled past for a moment. But just a moment before he went back to the beautiful present.

“But we’re here now, living in our second chance and”—Bellamy looked at her, smiling at just how _lucky_ he was, how lucky they were to have been given a second chance—“I love you, Clarke. I love you so much. So damn much.”

And even though he’d told her, he’d keep saying it. Keep taking each chance they got to tell her, again and again to make up for all those lost chances.


End file.
